This resource helps to identify and access GLOBE protocols and hands-on learning activities that complement the Urban Heat Island Effect phenomenon. 

GLOBE protocols can be used to collect many types of data to examine urban heat islands and their effects on the environment. Students can use the protocols to collect data and share their data with other GLOBE students around the world. Students can also conduct their own investigations and see how their data related to global patterns by using GLOBE and My NASA Data together.

In this NASA investigation, "What's Hot at the Mall," students examine how shopping malls change natural environments by examining thermal images gathered by NASA showing an area in Huntsville, Alabama. 

Students will analyze a line graph that shows how the surface temperature and air temperature values change over the course of 24 hours.

Students observe the surface temperatures of a variety of surface types found in a suburban environment.

Students analyze Landsat images of Atlanta, Georgia to explore the relationship between surface temperature and vegetation.

Students will analyze how surface (skin) temperatures vary across a community and determine what factors contribute to this variation. Students will describe how human activity can affect the local environment. 

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.

After learning about the different characteristics of satellite data, students will describe the advantages and disadvantages of using two different satellites to study the Urban Heat Island Effect.  

Students analyze a graph that illustrates the change in global surface temperature relative to 1951-1980 average temperatures.

Meet Jim Crawford, lead project scientist in atmospheric chemistry from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.