An urban heat island is a phenomenon that is best described when a city experiences much warmer temperatures than in nearby rural areas. The sun’s heat and light reach the city and the country in the same way. The difference in temperature between urban and less-developed rural areas has to do with how well the surfaces in each environment absorb and hold heat.

My NASA Data has recently released several new resources, StoryMaps, for use in educational settings.

Students move through a series of short activities to explore and evaluate global solar radiation data from NASA satellites.  In this process, students make qualitative and quantitative observations about seasonal variations in net energy input to the Earth System.

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 activity, students explore the Urban Heat Island Effect phenomenon by collecting temperatures of different materials with respect to their locations.  

GLOBE protocols and learning activities that complement the El Niño Southern Oscillation phenomenon through hands-on investigations are detailed.

GLOBE protocols and learning activities that complement the Ocean Circulation Patterns phenomenon through hands-on investigations are detailed. These protocols can be used to build a basis for understanding the principles of salinity and water temperature which are drivers of the ocean circulation patterns.

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Oceans protocol bundle. 

In this activity, students make a claim about the cause of ocean currents and then develop a model to explain the role of temperature and density in deep ocean currents.  This lesson is modified from "Visit to an Ocean Planet" Caltech and NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

This activity is one of a series in the collection, The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change activities.