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 review a video showing a global view of the top-of-atmosphere shortwave radiation from January 26 and 27, 2012 and answer the questions that follow.

This activity will help students better understand and practice estimating percent cloud cover.

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.

The Earth System Satellite, help the learner visualize how different Earth system variables change over time. In this lesson, students will graph six points for a location over one year.

Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is affected by many processes including fires, deforestation, and plant respiration. Students will evaluate a Landsat image to determine the rate of carbon dioxide sequestration in a particular area.

Students will analyze a pie chart (circle graph) showing the distribution of different parts of the Earth system's absorption and reflection of energy. 

In this mini lesson, students analyze a bar graph showing the relative forcings from natural and human factors that affect Earth's climate. They use information from this graph to assess the relative importance of these factors.