The advance-and-retreat cycle of snow cover drastically changes the whiteness and brightness of Earth. Using two maps created using NASA satellite data for 2017, students review the seasonal differences of snow and ice extent and answer questions on their observations.
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This investigation is part of the NASA: Mission Geography Module "What are the causes and consequences of climate change?" that guides students through explorations in climatic variability and evidence for global climate change.
This USGS activity leads students to an understanding of what remote sensing means and how researchers use it to study changes to the Earth’s surface, such as deforestation.
In this activity, you will use an inexpensive spectrophotometer* to test how light at different visible wavelengths (blue, green, red) is transmitted, or absorbed, through four different colored water samples.
Students differentiate between data sets of monthly shortwave radiation and monthly cloud coverage to discover a relationship between radiation and clouds by answering analysis questions.
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.
In this activity, students will model the geometry of solar eclipses using quarters to represent the Sun and Moon (not to scale).
Students review a visualization showing a global view of the top-of-atmosphere longwave radiation from January 26 and 27, 2012. They review the supporting text and analyze the data in the visualization to answer questions.
Students collect and analyze temperature data to explore what governs how much energy is reflected.
This lesson is designed to help students analyze the interaction between different cloud heights and Earth's incoming and outgoing energy.