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.

Dr. Tom Loveland is a research geographer at EROS and director of the USGS Land Cover Institute. He has been engaged in research on the use of remote sensing for land use and land cover investigations for over 25 years and has conducted studies that have spanned local to global scales. He was among the first to create continental and global-scale land cover data sets derived from remotely sensed imagery.

Dr. Dalia B. Kirschbaum is a Research Physical Scientist in the Hydrological Sciences Lab at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. Learn how she uses mathematics to investigate the interaction between the Hydrosphere & Geosphere.

Learn about Erika Podest's journey from a childhood in Panama to a career at NASA as a Research Scientist. 

Learn how Dr. Anyamba, Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Biospheric Sciences Laboratory explore how Earth's Biosphere and Geosphere respond to climate variability.

Students identify patterns and describe the relationship between chlorophyll concentration and incoming shortwave radiation. 

This StoryMap allows students to explore the formation and impacts of ash and aerosols from volcanic eruptions around the world in a 5 E-learning cycle. They will investigate how ash and aerosols produced from volcanic eruptions are hazardous to the human ecosystem, and will analyze concentrations of aerosols from a volcanic eruption over time. 

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Urban protocol bundle. 

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Oceans protocol bundle. 

Elizabeth Forsbacka is an instrument manager. She leads a diverse team to design, build and test Earth or space science instruments. She says "My job is to build a good team that can do it all. Our work from design through delivery of the spacecraft usually takes about four years." See what it's like to work on this sort of project.