Students move through a series of short activities to explore and evaluate global solar radiation data from NASA satellites.  In this process, students make qualitative and quantitative observations about seasonal variations in net energy input to the Earth System.

Students collect and analyze temperature data to explore what governs how much energy is reflected. 

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.

This activity invites students to model and observe the effect of melting ice sheets (from land) on sea level and the difference between the effect of melting sea-ice to that of melting land ice on sea level.

Check out how Dr. James Smith, Research Scientist at Biospheric Sciences Branch at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center researches changes in the Biosphere using remote sensing techniques.

Review this page to learn about the background of volcanoes and their eruptions.

Phytoplankton distribution background information.

Background information on the El Nino Southern Oscillation or ENSO.