Students construct explanations about Earth’s energy budget by connecting a model with observations from side-by-side animations of the monthly mapped data showing incoming and outgoing shortwave radiation from Earth’s surface.

Students will examine a 2014-2015 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event to identify relationships among sea surface height, sea surface temperature, precipitation, and wind vectors.

Phytoplankton distribution background information.

Guided by the 5E model, this lesson allows students to work together to uncover how changes in sea ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic regions are connected to Earth’s energy budget.

At the core of scientific visualization is the representation of data graphically - through images, animations, and videos - to improve understanding and develop insight. Data visualizers develop data-driven images, maps, and visualizations from information collected by Earth-observing satellites, airborne missions, and ground measurements. Visualizations allow us to explore data, phenomena and behavior; they are particularly effective for showing large scales of time and space, and "invisible" processes (e.g. flows of energy and matter) as integral parts of the models.

Learn about what a solar scientist does and see if you have any skills in common.

Students visit a NASA Website called "Eyes on the Earth" to view satellite missions in 3D circling the Earth and learn to navigate to specific satellites to learn about their capability of analyzing our changing planet and air quality.

An environmental planner tries to minimize the environmental impacts of housing, industrial, and transportation-related construction projects. Environmental planners help project managers navigate the environmental permitting process where they review a site to investigate potential environmental effects. This includes the effects of natural disasters.

Students will analyze surface temperature and solar radiation data to construct explanations about the relationship of seasons and temperature to the amount of solar energy received on Earth’s surface.

Chemists study atomic and molecular structures and their interactions.