Students will learn about and describe the different classifications of Air Quality Index and the importance of standards in air quality monitoring. Students will also use scientific evidence and reasoning to support a claim about long-term trends in air quality in the United States.  

Students will identify and describe the relationship between land cover classification and surface temperature as they relate to the urban heat island effect. Students will also describe patterns between population density and the locations of urban heat islands. 

Students will analyze how surface (skin) temperatures vary across a community and determine what factors contribute to this variation. Students will describe how human activity can affect the local environment. 

Students will analyze nitrogen dioxide concentration in the atmosphere at different spatial and temporal scales, and describe the stability of nitrogen dioxide as it relates to changes in human behavior. 

Scientific data are often represented by assigning ranges of numbers to specific colors. The colors are then used to make false color images which allow us to see patterns more easily. Students will make a false-color image using a set of numbers.

Students track weather over time and create a bar chart to track their data. 

In this story map students will learn about what air pollution is, its environmental impact, the standards used to describe air quality as defined by the Clean Air Act, and the Earth System interactions that drive the transport of air pollution.

Students identify patterns and describe the relationship between chlorophyll concentration and incoming shortwave radiation. 

Students will analyze surface temperature and solar radiation data to construct explanations about the relationship of seasons and temperature to the amount of solar energy received on Earth’s surface.

This story map allows students to explore the formation and impacts of ash and aerosols from volcanic eruptions around the world in a 5 E-learning cycle. They will investigate how ash and aerosols produced from volcanic eruptions are hazardous to the human ecosystem, and will analyze concentrations of aerosols from a volcanic eruption over time.