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.

Students will analyze images and data from a variety of NASA sensors and satellites depicting the wildfires of northern Canada to understand the state of the atmosphere at the time. Then they will answer a series of questions. 

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.

Explore and connect to GLOBE protocol bundles. Each bundle has related Earth System Data Explorer datasets identified.

Students develop and test a hypothesis about how albedo affects temperature.

Students use Phytopia: Exploration of the Marine Ecosystem, a computer-based tool, to investigate various phytoplankton species and topics relating to phytoplankton biology. 

Examine (daytime) surface temperature and solar radiation received at locations found near similar latitudes using NASA Data.

This investigation introduces students to the significant environmental changes occurring around the world. The investigation uses NASA satellite images of Brazil to illustrate deforestation as one type of environmental change.

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

The My NASA Data visualization tool, Earth System Data Explorer (ESDE), helps learners visualize complex Earth System data sets over space and time. Visit this page to review the datasets we have available to you and their organization by Earth System sphere, science variable, dataset name, and start/end dates.