The Earth System Satellite Images help students observe and analyze global Earth and environmental data, understand the relationship among different environmental variables, and explore how the data change seasonally and over longer timescales.  

Students will investigate the role of clouds and their contribution (if any) to global warming. Working in cooperative groups, students will make a claim about the future role clouds will play in Earth’s Energy Budget if temperatures continue to increase.

Students will watch and examine a NASA animation of Earth’s rising surface temperatures over an almost 150 year period.

The electromagnetic spectrum is comprised of all frequencies of electromagnetic radiation that propagate energy and travel through space in the form of waves. 

Explore and connect to GLOBE protocol bundles. Each bundle has related Earth System Data Explorer datasets identified.

Our Earth is a dynamic system with diverse subsystems that interact in complex ways. Questions that scientists have about the Earth as a System may include the following. As you learn more about the Earth System, reflect on these questions. 

Students will analyze and interpret maps of the average net atmospheric radiation to compare the flow of energy from the Sun toward Earth in different months and for cloudy versus clear days. Students will draw conclusions and support them with evidence.

Students use albedo values of common surfaces along with photographic images of Earth taken from the International Space Station to make an argument about specific anthropogenic activities that impact Earth’s albedo.

This lesson is designed to help students analyze the interaction between different cloud heights and Earth's incoming and outgoing energy. 

This lesson contains a card sort activity that challenges students to predict relative albedo values of common surfaces.