The activities in this guide will help students understand variations in environmental parameters by examining connections among different phenomena measured on local, regional and global scales.

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.

Explore and connect to biosphere protocols in GLOBE. Each protocol has related Earth System Data Explorer datasets identified, as well.

Explore and connect to protocols in GLOBE related to the cryosphere. Each protocol has related Earth System Data Explorer datasets identified as well.

The Earth's system is characterized by the interaction of processes that take place on molecular (very small) and planetary (very large) spatial scales, as well as on short and long time scales. Before scientists may begin their work with these data, it is important that they understand what the data are.

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.  

This mini lesson engages students by watching a NASA video related to plant growth activity around the world using data from the NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP satellite and answering questions on these stability and change relationships.

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Urban protocol bundle. 

Students are introduced to the Earthrise phenomenon by seeing the Earth as the Apollo 8 astronauts viewed our home planet for the first time from the Moon.  They will analyze a time series of mapped plots of Earth science variables that NASA monitors to better understand the Earth

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.