A kinesthetic activity that challenges students to participate in a model that describes the fate of solar energy as it enters the Earth system.  A good initial lesson for Earth’s energy budget, students unravel the benefits and limitations of their model.

Conduct this modified EO Kids mini-lesson with your students to explore the phenomenon of Urban Heat Island Effect.

Students move through a series of short activities to explore and evaluate global solar radiation data from NASA satellites.  In this process, students make qualitative and quantitative observations about seasonal variations in net energy input to the Earth System.

This activity will help students better understand and practice estimating percent cloud cover.

This lesson contains a card sort activity that challenges students to predict relative albedo values of common surfaces. 

Background information on the El Nino Southern Oscillation or ENSO.

Earth is a system of systems.

Read about Abigale Wyatt's great adventure as she travels on the R/V Sally Ride for a month-long cruise to study how plankton in the ocean affect the carbon cycle and, ultimately, the climate.

Students use albedo values of common surfaces along with photographic images of Earth taken from the International Space Station to make an argument about specific anthropogenic activities that impact Earth’s albedo.

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.