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

Meet Clarissa Anderson, a biological oceanographer who is currently serving as the director of Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She is working with NASA to pursuing solutions regarding harmful algal blooms on California's Coast.

In this activity, students make a claim about the cause of ocean currents and then develop a model to explain the role of temperature and density in deep ocean currents.  This lesson is modified from "Visit to an Ocean Planet" Caltech and NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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

This Lesson Plan provides some generic maps, graphs, and data tables for use with the Data Literacy Cubes. Because it is a differentiated resource, this Lesson Plan is appropriate for multiple grade bands. 

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.

Many of our archived lessons date back to as early as 2004 when our learning community first formed and unfortunately contain links to content that is no longer updated or exist.

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.

The ocean's surface is not level, and sea levels change in response to changes in chemistry and temperature. Sophisticated satellite measurements are required for scientists to document current sea level rise.

In this activity, students explore three indicators of drought are: soil moisture, lack of precipitation, and decreased streamflows. Students investigate each of these parameters develop a sense for the effects of drought on land.