In this lesson, students will investigate the drivers of climate change, including adding carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, sea level rise, and the effect of decreasing sea ice on temperatures.

Students visit a NASA Website called "Eyes on the Earth" to view satellite missions in 3D circling the Earth and learn to navigate to specific satellites to learn about their capability of analyzing our changing planet and air quality.

The Earth System Satellite Images, along with the Data Literacy Cubes, helps the learner identify patterns in a specific image.  

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

This activity invites students to simulate and observe the different effects on sea level from melting sea-ice.

Sea Level Scientists are also known by several other names (marine geologist, paleoceanographer, paleoclimatologist, etc.). These professionals use natural records from the past to characterize local, regional, and global environments.

Steve Nerem is the leader of NASA’s Sea Level Change team. His project, Observation-Driven Projections of Future Regional Sea Level Change, focuses on using NASA satellite and in situ observations and climate modeling to estimate future regional sea level change.

This activity invites students to model and observe the effect of melting ice sheets (from land) on sea level and the difference between the effect of melting sea-ice to that of melting land ice on sea level.

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.