Students investigate the effects of Hurricane Sandy and make a scale model of the storm over the continental United States to assess the area of impact.

Students analyze map visualizations representing the amount of Sun’s energy received on the Earth as indicated by the amount that is reflected back to space, known as “albedo”.

Students review Earth System phenomena that are affected by soil moisture.  They analyze and evaluate maps of seasonal global surface air temperature and soil moisture data from NASA satellites. Building from their observations, students will select a location in the U.S.

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. 

Students visit a NASA Website called "Eyes on the Earth" to view satellite missions in 3D circling the Earth and learn to navigate to specific satellites to learn about their capability of analyzing our changing planet and air quality.

Air quality is a measure of the pollution level in the air. Polluted air can be caused by many things. There are manmade and natural sources of emissions. 

Students will examine a 2014-2015 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event to identify relationships among sea surface height, sea surface temperature, precipitation, and wind vectors.

In this activity, students will model  the geometry of solar eclipses by plotting a few points on a piece of graph paper, and using quarters and a nickel to represent the Sun and Moon (not to scale). 

Students model Earth's tectonic plate movement and explore the relationship between these movements and different types of volcanoes.

This unit plan is published by the NASA Climate Change Research Initiative's (CCRI) Applied Research STEM Curriculum Portfolio.  The CCRI Unit Plan, called “Urban Surface Temperatures and the Urban Heat Island Effects,“ has the purpose to educate students how climate is changi