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.
Educational Resources - Search Tool
Students develop and test a hypothesis about how albedo affects temperature.
Students will practice constructing claims using evidence and reasoning.
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.
Use the Data Literacy Cubes to guide students’ exploration of data to enrich their observations and inferences. This is a flexible resource that may be used with a variety of graphical representations of data. This activity requires a graph for students to evaluate.
In this activity, students will learn about sea ice and land ice. They will observe ice melting on a solid surface near a body of water and ice melting in a body of water.
Students evaluate graphs and images of sea ice and relate them to changes in albedo. Students make a claim about the interaction of albedo and sea ice extent.
NASA visualizers take data – numbers, codes – and turn them into animations people can see and quickly understand.
This activity is designed to introduce students to geologic processes on Earth and how to identify geologic features in images. It will also introduce students to how scientists use Earth to gain a better understanding of other planetary bodies in the solar system.
Students are introduced to the Earthrise phenomenon by seeing the Earth as the Apollo 8 astronauts viewed our home planet for the first time from the Moon. They will analyze a time series of mapped plots of Earth science variables that NASA monitors to better understand the Earth System.