Background information on snow and ice extent.

My NASA Data has recently released several new resources, StoryMaps, for use in educational settings.

In this lesson, Observing Earth’s Seasonal Changes, students observe patterns of average snow and ice amounts as they change from one month to another, as well as connect the concepts of the tilt and orbit of the Earth (causing the changing of seasons) with monthly snow/ice data from January 2008

Students explore positive feedback effects of changing albedo from melting Arctic sea ice.

Students will make a claim about whether changing albedo contributes to changes in Arctic habitats.

Explore and connect to protocols in GLOBE related to the cryosphere. Each protocol has related Earth System Data Explorer datasets identified as well.

Students develop and test a hypothesis about how albedo affects temperature.

Students connect day/night and seasonal cycles with albedo in the Arctic region. 

The My NASA Data visualization tool, Earth System Data Explorer (ESDE), helps learners visualize complex Earth System data sets over space and time. Visit this page to review the datasets we have available to you and their organization by Earth System sphere, science variable, dataset name, and start/end dates. 

Explore the energy and matter cycles found within the Earth System.