This USGS activity leads students to an understanding of what remote sensing means and how researchers use it to study changes to the Earth’s surface, such as deforestation. 

Students review a video that models the global impact of smoke from fires to develop an understanding of how models can be used to interpret and forecast phenomena in the Earth System. 

This mini lesson focuses on Landsat satellite data and how it is used to detect changes in land use. Students will answer questions based off of a NASA Video that features how Landsat data are interpreted in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, and gives examples of the effects insects and logging have with land management.

Explore and connect to pedosphere protocols in GLOBE. Each protocol correlates to related datasets from the Earth System Data Explorer.

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.

Every day, scientists at NASA work on creating better hurricanes on a computer screen. At NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, a team of scientists spends its days incorporating millions of atmospheric observations. Sophisticated graphic tools and lines of computer code to create computer models simulating the weather and climate conditions responsible for hurricanes.

Students will engage in a “Zoom In Inquiry” learning routine to understand a world map that shows changes in PM_2.5-attributable mortality per 100,000 population (Bondie, 2013).

Review this page to learn about the background of volcanoes and their eruptions.

In this NASA-JPL lesson, students create a model of a volcano, produce and record lava flows, and interpret geologic history through volcano formation and excavation. 

In this 5E’s lesson, students observe maps that show smoke and AOD levels surrounding Fresno, California at the time when the 2020 Creek Fire was burning. Students construct a claim that identifies a relationship between fire-related data and air quality data.