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.

Discover how GLOBE protocols and learning activities can provide hands-on opportunities for students to explore My NASA Data phenomena.

In addition to the changes brought about by natural forces, it has recently become apparent that a relative newcomer to planet Earth — the human being — has become a powerful agent of environmental change.

Ryan Turner says "My career has focused on software and software is ubiquitous, so I have been involved in many different projects. There is a lot of flexibility with software. I’ve worked on projects ranging from real-time displays of sounding rocket trajectories to enterprise messaging software tools for spacecraft operations centers." Read about the role of mentorship in his career.

Background information on soil moisture.

Dr. Norman Loeb, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, is the principal investigator for an experiment called the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES). CERES instruments measure how much of the sun’s energy is reflected back to space and how much thermal energy is emitted by Earth to space.

Students review a video showing a global view of the top-of-atmosphere shortwave radiation from January 26 and 27, 2012 and answer the questions that follow.

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.

To investigate the different rates of heating and cooling of certain materials on earth in order to understand the heating dynamics that take place in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Background information on the El Nino Southern Oscillation or ENSO.