Students will analyze the mapped plot of the historic Ocean Chlorophyll Concentrations at key locations around the world for the period of 1998-2018.

Students review the NASA video showing biosphere data over the North Atlantic Ocean as a time series animation displaying a decade of phytoplankton blooms and answer questions.

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

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Mosquito protocol bundle. 

Students analyze surface air temperature anomalies to identify change with respect to different latitudes across the world.

By investigating the data presented in a model that displays extreme summer air temperatures, students explain energy transfer in the Earth system and consider the impact of excessive heat on local communities.

Elizabeth Forsbacka is an instrument manager. She leads a diverse team to design, build and test Earth or space science instruments. She says "My job is to build a good team that can do it all. Our work from design through delivery of the spacecraft usually takes about four years." See what it's like to work on this sort of project.

The extreme temperatures during July 2022 prompt students to investigate a model that displays historical heat wave frequency data to discover the importance of defining terms when interpreting data.

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.