In Part A of this activity, students will learn about how sea …
In Part A of this activity, students will learn about how sea ice forms and influences ocean currents around the globe. In Part B, they will look at how sea ice thickness changes over time. Finally, in Part C, students will use NSIDC sea ice index data to explore changes in sea ice extent on multiple time scales including months, years, and decades.
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Students view and explore a variety of different hurricane visualizations: movies of …
Students view and explore a variety of different hurricane visualizations: movies of satellite imagery (visible and IR); composite images with rainfall intensity, wind circulation, temperature; cross sectional composites; radar imagery. Based upon their analysis of the images, they identify basic hurricanes structure, wind circulation patterns, precipitation patterns. Next, they compare their interpretation and labeling of the images with textbook or Internet derived diagrams of hurricane structure and refine their interpretation and labeling. To conclude, students are presented with images of a southern hemisphere tropical cyclone that they contrast and compare to northern hemisphere cyclones.
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Students build a physical model to explore watershed features, then use Google …
Students build a physical model to explore watershed features, then use Google Earth software to tie the model to a real place. By exploring several layers of map-based images and data, students develop an appreciation of the complexity of a watershed and river system in the context of a both a local and national scale.
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In this Lab students focus their attention on an area significantly larger …
In this Lab students focus their attention on an area significantly larger than their study site as they apply their developing knowledge of local Earth system interactions to the regional scale. Although the scale changes, the questions remain the same. How does organism or process or event "A" influence, or become changed by organism or process or event "B"? Specifically, in what ways is my local region interconnected with adjoining regions? What types of matter and energy cross the regional boundaries to help define and shape the neighboring regions? Although students will investigate the region in which they live, the concept of a "study site" changes: instead of focusing their attention on an actual plot of land, students will investigate their region by combining their personal knowledge of the region with information they can learn from Google Earth.
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During this lab, students learn about the life cycle of corals, including …
During this lab, students learn about the life cycle of corals, including how they grow and reproduce. Students consider the chemistry of seawater and the importance of the symbiotic relationship between corals and zooxanthellae in the formation of coral reefs. They blow CO2 through calcium hydroxide (limewater) to model how respiration assists coral in precipitating calcium carbonate. Students also build on the coral polyp models they made in Lab 2 to demonstrate coral growth, reproduction, and reef formation.
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In the first part of this lab, students learn about land ice …
In the first part of this lab, students learn about land ice and the processes and timescales involved in glaciation. In Part B, they use an online interactive to explore how glaciers provide scientists with evidence for climate change. Finally, students use image processing software to measure how much area a real glacier has lost over time due to rising temperatures.
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Students begin this investigation by reading about the basic premises of Ecosystem-Based …
Students begin this investigation by reading about the basic premises of Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) and how it can be applied to fisheries management — Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management (EBFM). In Part B of the investigation, students learn about Integrated Ecosystem Assessments and how they are used as a tool for ecosystem-based fisheries management.
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Students explore NOAA's official record of tropical storms and hurricanes, then work …
Students explore NOAA's official record of tropical storms and hurricanes, then work with the primary data and data products to identify the dates and aspects of the Atlantic hurricane season.
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Corals, like other living animals, require a particular range of environmental conditions …
Corals, like other living animals, require a particular range of environmental conditions to survive. In this lab, students examine sea surface temperature, depth, salinity, and aragonite saturation data to discover coral reefs' favored environments.
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In Part A:Students are introduced to the global circulation patterns of the …
In Part A:Students are introduced to the global circulation patterns of the atmosphere and the oceans, and investigate how those circulation patterns might influence their local region. In Part B: Students study surface ocean currents and then predict the pathway of a floating object dropped into the ocean at a particular point, maybe one closest to their own region. Then, using a computer model of ocean currents, they test their predictions.
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Students select a storm from the HURDAT database and create its track …
Students select a storm from the HURDAT database and create its track in the tool, Google Earth. The visualization they produce details the location and intensity of their storm through time. Afterwards, students access an online mapping tool to examine the locations and life cycles of hundreds of Atlantic storms.
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This lab activity introduces students to Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). In Part …
This lab activity introduces students to Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). In Part A, students read about what MPAs are, what purposes they serve, and how they are classified. In Part B, they learn about the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cort��s). This tiny strip of sea has historically been one of the richest and most productive marine ecosystems in the world, but today faces many of the same threats that are destroying ocean health worldwide. Students watch short videos and read about challenges of new MPAs in the area as well as about Cabo Pulmo, which has been an MPA since 1995.
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In this activity students develop a practical understanding of the causes and …
In this activity students develop a practical understanding of the causes and symptoms of drought. They read background articles and prepare a physical model to illustrate the role that soil moisture plays in preventing or promoting drought. Students use Google Earth to examine precipitation and streamflow data and use them to predict locations that are experiencing drought. They check their predictions by comparing them to a drought monitor map. In the final section, students examine and interpret the current map of the Palmer Drought Severity Index.
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In Lab 5, students learned about some of the global circulation processes …
In Lab 5, students learned about some of the global circulation processes that transport both matter and energy around the planet. In Lab 6A they get a much more specific picture of the Earth system at the global scale as they investigate data collected by NASA satellites. The data is displayed in image form in the NEO (NASA Earth Observations) data visualization tool. How do the four interconnected spheres show up at the global scale in these data representations? Is it possible, from studying this data, to infer some of the same interconnections at the global scale that were identified at the local study site? What can students infer from studying changes across the seasons? In Lab 6B students play a game that focuses their attention on the global water cycle, but at the particle scale: what might happen to this molecule of water that falls onto the ground, or into a stream? Next they step back to the macroscopic scale as they diagram the ways in which water moves through the four interconnected spheres of the Earth system.
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America's most famous drought resulted in an environmental disaster called the Dust …
America's most famous drought resulted in an environmental disaster called the Dust Bowl. From 1931 to 1939, a five-state region of the Great Plains received little rain and experienced horrendous dust storms that stripped the land of its topsoil. The event went on to shape the demographics of the American West as thousands of people migrated out of the plains and on to western states. In this activity, students will watch a PBS video and/or interact with the video's companion website. They will also examine maps and animations that show the distribution of drought patterns over the past 300 years; these maps were reconstructed from environmental records. Finally, students will examine the amount of time different areas spend in drought.
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Students read articles from sources such as Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), NASA, …
Students read articles from sources such as Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), NASA, the National Weather Service (NWS), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and develop summaries of unusual weather patterns that have occurred in recent years. They read and share 2-page articles of indicators of climate change from the EPA. Then they examine and discuss maps of changing global temperature and precipitation patterns and relate the changes in climate to changes in the suitability of a region for a particular plant species.
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This lab activity introduces students to overfishing, using Georges Bank groundfish as …
This lab activity introduces students to overfishing, using Georges Bank groundfish as a case study. In Part A, students learn about overfishing by examining trends in annual haddock landings and mortality in Georges Bank from 1969-2016. In Part B, they learn about what it means for a species to be overfished by examining trends in Georges Bank Atlantic cod recruitments and spawning biomass from 1978-2014. In Part C, students explore the issue of the still-collapsed cod stocks and the role ocean warming may play in the failure to for the stock to rebound.
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In the previous lab, students explored the characteristics of the ocean environment …
In the previous lab, students explored the characteristics of the ocean environment in which coral reefs thrive. Unfortunately,there are a number of factors, both natural and anthropogenic (resulting from human activities), that can alter the ocean environment and threaten the health of coral reef ecosystems. In this activity, students will examine the three main factors that disrupt corals.
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Students have been examining Earth as a system of interacting parts, initially …
Students have been examining Earth as a system of interacting parts, initially from the local perspective but more recently from the regional and global perspectives. In order to fully understand the Earth as a system and how its components interact with each other, students need to consider change over time. On relatively short times scales, these changes are related to the fact that the solar energy that drives the Earth system passes through an atmosphere that varies across space and time before reaching a spinning sphere. Across longer seasonal and annual time scales, these changes are more specifically related to the differential heating that results from the tilt of Earth's axis and Earth's orbit around the sun. At this longer-term global scale, it may be easier to see the repeating patterns of change across space and time and to infer how changes in one sphere may be linked to changes in others.
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Aquaculture is the most rapidly growing food-production industry in the world. In …
Aquaculture is the most rapidly growing food-production industry in the world. In Part A of this investigation, students examine and analyze U.S. and global aquaculture data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Fisheries and Aquaculture database. In Part B, students examine global trends in aquaculture production and learn about aquaculture methods and their associated environmental impacts. In Part C, students use Google Earth to analyze before and after satellite images of the Pacific coast of Honduras to illustrate how aquaculture is altering coastlines.
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