This video provides tips for teachers on helping students make sense of data to help them understand and work with data. It is based on the work of Kristin Hunter-Thomson of Dataspire.org and uses data from the My NASA Data Earth System Data Explorer.

Students observe seasonal images of Monthly Leaf Area, looking for any changes that are occurring throughout the year.

Students examine satellite images of a recently formed island to identify areas of erosion and deposition.

Students observe monthly images of changing vegetation patterns, looking for seasonal changes occurring throughout 2017. These data can be used by students to develop their own models of change.

Compare pictures of different volcanoes. Then visit NASA's Space Place to learn about volcanoes and answer questions about volcanic eruptions.

Compare images from two volcanic eruptions in the Kuril Islands which occurred ten years apart and complete a graphic organizer for impacts on different Earth spheres. 

Students examine satellite images of an island before and after a volcanic eruption to determine the impact of the eruption.

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.

Use the Data Literacy Cube to guide students’ exploration of mapped data of the Earth System to enrich their observations and inferences.  This is a flexible resource that may be used with a variety of mapped images.  This activity requires a map of Earth data for students to evalu

Use the Earth System Data Explorer to analyze data and make a claim about which 2018 eruption was larger, Kilauea, HI or Ambae Island, Vanuatu.