Students will watch and examine a NASA animation of Earth’s rising surface temperatures over an almost 150 year period.

Students move through a series of short activities to explore and evaluate global solar radiation data from NASA satellites.  In this process, students make qualitative and quantitative observations about seasonal variations in net energy input to the Earth System.

In this activity, students will model  the geometry of solar eclipses by plotting a few points on a piece of graph paper, and using quarters and a nickel to represent the Sun and Moon (not to scale). 

In this activity, students will analyze past and future eclipse data and orbital models to determine why we don’t experience eclipses every month.