The purpose of this activity is for students to create a desktop soil profile based on the biome region of the United States where your school is located.

Students review Earth System phenomena that are affected by soil moisture.  They analyze and evaluate maps of seasonal global surface air temperature and soil moisture data from NASA satellites. Building from their observations, students will select a location in the U.S.

In this mini-lesson, students analyze soil moisture quantities associated with Hurricane Harvey around Houston, Texas on August 25, 2017.

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.

NASA Worldview is a free online visualization tool that is a great launchpad for learners who are new (or veteran) users of satellite data.

Learners will analyze and interpret a box plot and evaluate the spread of the data. Learners will compare it with a different visualization of the data to see how the two compare, discuss the limitations of the two types of data displays and formulate questions.