Our Earth is a dynamic system with diverse subsystems that interact in complex ways. Questions that scientists have about the Earth as a System may include the following. As you learn more about the Earth System, reflect on these questions. 

MND recognizes that teaching science is about helping students make sense of the world around them, not memorizing facts and principles. MND makes teaching Earth Science easier (and more interesting) by organizing NASA data with the phenomena that they support.

The Earth System Poster activity walks learners through global patterns and illuminates how each of the spheres is interconnected across the world. We will divide into small groups to look at maps of different parts of the earth system that have been observed by NASA satellites.

Students will analyze and interpret graphs to compare the flow of (shortwave) energy from the Sun toward China over the course of a year on cloudy versus clear days. Students will draw a conclusion and support it with evidence.

This resource helps to identify and access GLOBE protocols and hands-on learning activities that complement the Plant Growth Patterns phenomenon. 

In this activity, students will analyze a NASA sea surface height model of El Niño for December 27, 2015, and answer questions. Then they will be instructed to create a model of their own made from pudding to reflect the layers of El Niño.

A system is an organized group of related components that work together to carry out functions that the individual parts cannot do alone.  The Earth System, like the human body system, are similar in that they comprise diverse parts that interact in complex ways.

Selected GLOBE protocols and learning activities which support some aspect of the investigation of scale, proportion and quantity are outlined.

Every day, scientists at NASA work on creating better hurricanes on a computer screen. At NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, a team of scientists spends its days incorporating millions of atmospheric observations. Sophisticated graphic tools and lines of computer code to create computer models simulating the weather and climate conditions responsible for hurricanes.

Guided by the 5E model, this lesson allows students to work together to uncover how changes in sea ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic regions are connected to Earth’s energy budget.