Students learn how to estimate the "energy efficiency" of photosynthesis, or the amount of energy that plants absorb for any given location on Earth. This is the ratio of the amount of energy stored to the amount of light energy absorbed and is used to evaluate and model photosynthesis efficiency.

In this mini lesson, students explore the relationship of chlorophyll and solar radiation by analyzing line graphs from the North Atlantic during 2016-2018.

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

Students will analyze the monthly seasonal chlorophyll concentration images in our global oceans for the four different months of 2024, and then answer the following questions.

My NASA Data has recently released several new resources, StoryMaps, for use in educational settings.

Students analyze and compare satellite data of Ocean Chlorophyll Concentrations with Sea Surface Temperatures, beginning with the North Atlantic region, while answering questions about the global patterns of these phenomenon.

Explore using units in calculations with the Leaf Area Index (LAI). LAI is a ratio that describes the number of square meters of leaves per square meter of available land surface. Because of the units in the ratio, it is dimensionless.

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.

Explore using units for calculations with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). NDVI is a ratio of different light wavelength reflectance which can be used to map the density of green vegetation.

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Oceans protocol bundle.