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 examine the two time series images to determine the differences between seasonal ice melt over water versus land.

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.

Read this interview with Kristopher Bedka to find out more about life as a Senior Research Scientist at NASA.

Check out this interactive data visualization and simulation tool.  It explores the impact of collapsing polar ice sheets (Greenland and Antarctica) and their impact on global mean sea level rise, along with shrinkage in the livable area around the world.

Charles Gatebe is a climate scientist who studies reflected sunlight to improve our understanding of the composition of the atmosphere and surface properties, including land and ocean, and impact on Earth's radiation budget and climate. Learn about how he conducts experiments and uses data from around the world.

In this activity, students use satellite images from the NASA Landsat team to quantify changes in glacier cover over time from 1986 to 2018. 

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. 

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

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.