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.

Students analyze historic plant growth data (i.e., Peak Bloom dates) of Washington, D.C.’s famous cherry blossom trees, as well as atmospheric near surface temperatures as evidence for explaining the phenomena of earlier Peak Blooms in our nation’s capital.

This Lesson Plan provides maps, graphs, and data tables for use with the Data Literacy Cubes. Because it is a differentiated resource, it is appropriate for multiple grade bands. 

The purpose of this activity is to have students use an Earth Systems perspective to identify the various causes associated with changes to Earth's forests as they review Landsat imagery of site locations from around the world.

Examine the images to see the projected differences in land use between 1900 and 2100. 

Interpret the map, or model, to find patterns in the occurrence of tropical cyclones from 1842 through 2018.

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

Students will analyze the monthly seasonal chlorophyll concentration images in our global oceans for the four different months of 2017, and then answer the following questions.

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.

NASA visualizers take data – numbers, codes – and turn them into animations people can see and quickly understand.