Students review a video that models the global impact of smoke from fires to develop an understanding of how models can be used to interpret and forecast phenomena in the Earth System. 

The Earth System Satellite Images help students observe and analyze global Earth and environmental data, understand the relationship among different environmental variables, and explore how the data change seasonally and over longer timescales.  

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.

Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is affected by many processes including fires, deforestation, and plant respiration. Students will evaluate a Landsat image to determine the rate of carbon dioxide sequestration in a particular area.

Check out the Arctic and Earth SIGNs video to explore how climate models are used in climate change research.

The advance-and-retreat cycle of snow cover drastically changes the whiteness and brightness of Earth. Using two maps created using NASA satellite data for 2017, students review the seasonal differences of snow and ice extent and answer questions on their observations.

The El Niño Implementation Sequence provides a series of lessons and activities for students to learn about a condition that sometimes occurs in the Pacific Ocean, but it is so big that it affects weather all over the world.

This activity invites students to simulate and observe the different effects on sea level from melting sea-ice.

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.

Students are divided into three different groups and are assigned a category of drivers of change in regional trends of freshwater storage (Climate Change, Human Activity, and Natural Variability).