Students watch videos and review articles related to ozone as a pollutant at ground level, and how ozone impacts environment, then provide their understanding in groups.

Students synthesize information from My NASA Data maps and texts from the EPA website to determine how levels of criteria pollutants have changed from 2005 to 2021. This research will prepare them to respond to the lesson’s essential questions during a Socratic seminar.

Many of our archived lessons date back to as early as 2004 when our learning community first formed and unfortunately contain links to content that is no longer updated or exist.  Please note that some of these have been updated, and we continue to update them.  Please check ou

Air quality is a measure of the pollution level in the air. Polluted air can be caused by many things. There are manmade and natural sources of emissions. 

Use the Earth System Data Explorer to analyze data and make a claim about which 2018 eruption was larger, Kilauea, HI or Ambae Island, Vanuatu.

Students interpret AQI maps and charts to compare today’s AQI with the past five days. Using the EPA’s air quality activity guides, students create a social media post for residents of their region providing key information related to today’s AQI.

Students observe how air quality changes over time, for a selected location, using data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Students will analyze how air pollution may be transported over time. Students will also differentiate between sources of air pollution and describe how air pollution interacts with the Earth System. 

Students visit a NASA Website called "Eyes on the Earth" to view satellite missions in 3D circling the Earth and learn to navigate to specific satellites to learn about their capability of analyzing our changing planet and air quality.

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