The Cryosphere refers to any place on Earth where water is in its solid form, where low temperatures freeze water and turn it into ice. The frozen water can be in the form of solid ice or snow and occurs in many places around the Earth. People often think of the polar regions of our planet as the main home of the Cyrosphere; the North Pole in the Arctic, as well as the South Pole in the Antarctic. The cryosphere exists in the polar regions, but is also found wherever snow, sea ice, glaciers, permafrost, ice sheets, and icebergs exists. In these places, surface temperatures remain below freezing for a portion of each year. 

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

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Oceans protocol bundle. 

This activity is one of a series in the collection, The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change activities. 

Guided by the 5E model, this lesson allows students to work together to uncover how changes in sea ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic regions are connected to Earth’s energy budget.

Students explore the spatial patterns observed in meteorological data and learn how this information is used to predict weather and understand climate behavior.

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Air Quality protocol bundle. 

GLOBE protocols and learning activities that complement the Changes in Snow and Ice Extent phenomenon through hands-on investigations are detailed.

Students analyze two North Pole orthographic data visualizations produced from soil moisture data. After describing trends in the seasonal thaw of land surfaces, students demonstrate their understanding of Earth’s energy budget by explaining relationships and make predictions about the dataset.

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.