In this activity, you will use an inexpensive spectrophotometer* to test how light at different visible wavelengths (blue, green, red) is transmitted, or absorbed, through four different colored water samples.
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Explore using units for calculations with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). NDVI is a ratio of different light wavelength reflectance which can be used to map the density of green vegetation.
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 watch a NOVA PBS video about the different effects of clouds on climate and Earth's energy budget. Then they answer questions and brainstorm to complete a flow chart of events that might occur if the percentage of absorbing clouds increases.
These six graphs show Ocean Chlorophyll Concentrations from 1998 - 2018 in a variety of locations: East Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, California Coast, Southeastern US/Gulf of Mexico, Northeastern US and the Scotian Shelf, and the Hawaiian Islands.