Software engineers play an important role at NASA as this field supports the success of our missions on Earth and beyond.  This field will continue to grow as it helps NASA address the many challenges that our agency faces.

This resource helps to identify and access GLOBE protocols and hands-on learning activities that complement the Phytoplankton Distribution phenomenon.

In this lesson, students investigate and identify various phytoplankton using images that were previously taken with a compound microscope.  Credit:  This lesson is modified from a lesson of the same name created by The Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education&nbsp

This lesson is taken from NASA's Phytopia: Discovery of the Marine Ecosystem written in partnership with Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science with funding from the National Science Foundation.

Students use Phytopia: Exploration of the Marine Ecosystem, a computer-based tool, to investigate various phytoplankton species and topics relating to phytoplankton biology. 

Oceanography covers a wide range of topics, including marine life and ecosystems, ocean circulation, plate tectonics and the geology of the seafloor, and the chemical and physical properties of the ocean.

In this activity, you will use an inexpensive spectrophotometer* to test how light at different visible wavelengths (blue, green, red) is transmitted, or absorbed, through four different colored water samples.