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.

The My NASA Data visualization tool, Earth System Data Explorer (ESDE), helps learners visualize complex Earth System data sets over space and time. Visit this page to review the datasets we have available to you and their organization by Earth System sphere, science variable, dataset name, and start/end dates. 

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

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Weather protocol bundle. 

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Air Quality protocol bundle. 

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Soils protocol bundle. 

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Rivers and Lakes protocol bundle. 

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Urban protocol bundle. 

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Oceans protocol bundle. 

Students learn how to estimate the "energy efficiency" of photosynthesis, or the amount of energy that plants absorb for any given location on Earth. This is the ratio of the amount of energy stored to the amount of light energy absorbed and is used to evaluate and model photosynthesis efficiency.