This hands-on inquiry activity allows students to explore how the color of materials that cover the Earth affects the amounts of sunlight it absorbs using a simple model.
Resource Type: Activities
Factors that have the power to change global climate can be natural, like volcanic eruptions and changes in solar energy, or caused by humans, like the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
Resource Type: Information
Without the Sun, life on Earth would not be possible. The energy we receive from the Sun provides light and heat, drives our planet's winds and ocean currents, helps crops grow, and more.
The biosphere includes all life on our planet. Scientists study how biological processes, like photosynthesis, affect other parts of the Earth system. Humans are only a small fraction of Earth's biosphere, but our actions have a large impact.
Resource Type: Information
Vector-borne diseases are transmitted typically by the bite of an infected arthropod. Climate plays an important role in the seasonal pattern or temporal distribution of diseases that are carried and transmitted through vectors because the vector animals often thrive in particular climate conditions.
All of the atoms that are building blocks of living things are a part of biogeochemical cycles. The most common of these are the carbon and nitrogen cycles.
Resource Type: Information
Students investigate a physical model to explore how satellite data impacts weather monitoring and forecasting.
Resource Type: Activities
Over the past century, the global average temperature has warmed. Learn the science of why this has happened, and what the future holds.
Resource Type: Information
Students explore how shadows work and why they change through the day as the Sun appears to move across the sky by comparing their shadows at different times of the day and modeling with shadow puppets to see how the location of a light source changes a shadow.
Resource Type: Activities
Students learn about the urban heat island effect by investigating the temperature of various surfaces in their schoolyard. Then they analyze data to discover how the number of heat waves in Los Angeles has changed over time.
Resource Type: Activities