This lesson is taken from NASA's Phytopia: Discovery of the Marine Ecosystem written in partnership with Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science with funding from the National Science Foundation.

 Air, Water, Land, & Life: A Global Perspective

In this NASA-JPL lesson, students create a model of a volcano, produce and record lava flows, and interpret geologic history through volcano formation and excavation. 

The GLOBE Program provides students with the ability to explore Earth as a System with data sets and protocols related to the Atmosphere, Biosphere, Hydrosphere, and Geosphere. 

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.

Phytoplankton distribution background information.

The world's surface air temperature is getting warmer. Whether the cause is human activity or natural changes in the Earth System—and the enormous body of evidence says it’s humans—thermometer readings all around the world have risen steadily since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. 

Students watch a 28-minute video on NASA's involvement in fighting wildfires.

In this activity, students explore the Urban Heat Island Effect phenomenon by collecting temperatures of different materials with respect to their locations.  This activity was modified from The NASA PUMAS Collection's "What makes

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