El Niño in the Pacific

This Teaching Box was updated with additional resources, September 2026. 

Engage students with a story of El Niño’s impacts.

• An El Niño Fish Tale: Have students read this five-part story to get a sense of the impact El Niño had on vulnerable fisheries in 1972 and learn how the ocean and atmosphere change during an El Niño event. Have students use the El Niño Fish Tale Graphic Organizer Sheet (pdf) to help them take notes and organize what they learn.  Follow with a class discussion that generates a list of what students learned and what questions they have about El Niño.

Explore El Niño data to understand the pattern of sea surface temperatures.

• Transition: Referring to the story, An El Niño Fish Tale, ask why fishermen found less fish during El Niño (because of the change in ocean temperature and upwelling). Tell students that in this next part they will look at data about sea surface temperature to explore how temperatures change in the Pacific during El Niño and how that impacts marine life.

NOTE: The Investigating El Niño Using Real Data site is currently offline. 

For an alternative site that allows students to explore real data, go to El Niño Observatory. On this site, you can explore: 

• Live winds and temperature data
• An interactive map to locate the impact of El Niño in your area
• GOES Satellite imagery
• Historical data

Investigating El Nino Using Real Data: Students complete five small activities (from the NOAA Ocean Data Education: NODE Project) to scaffold understanding of how to interpret sea surface temperature data and then explore El Niño using real data. Have students work on their own or in pairs at computers to complete the activities.

• Level 1: Reading Sea Surface Temperature
• Level 2: Looking at SST in a Different Way
• Level 3: Detecting El Nino
• Level 4: Relating SST to Productivity
• Level 5: Design Your Own Investigation

Explain what we know about the science of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

• Have students explore the science of El Niño by reading an overview of the El Niño -Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and related short articles about Upwelling and Teleconnections, or watch NOAA's ClimateBits "El Niño" video Students at the high school level can explore NOAA’s ENSO Blog to gain a deeper understanding of what is happening with ENSO now and the potential impacts of climate change on the cycles.  You can also choose to read A Super El Niño Is Very Strong, But Even Weaker El Niños Affect the Weather to learn how scientists are able to observe and predict how strong an El Niño event will be. 
• Instruct students to create concept maps to organize the information they learn, focusing on how El Niño events impact (1) air pressure, (2) wind, (3) upwelling, (4) ocean temperature, (5) evaporation, and (6) weather.  Have students write a statement about how each is impacted by El Niño and then draw arrows to illustrate which items affect each other (see the sample concept map at the right). Discuss as a class.

Elaborate with a case study of El Niño impacts.

• My NASA Data: El Niño Lesson: In this activity, students explore the 1997 El Niño event through satellite data to learn the impact of El Niño on local weather patterns. Note that this activity takes one class period.
• Q&A with NOAA El Niño Expert Michelle L'Heureux:  In this article on the strength of El Niño  events, compare the graphs of temperature and preciptation since 1950, sorted by strength.  
  • What do you notice? What patterns are worth further investigation? 
  • What does this statement mean: "There is research showing that El Niño relationships with precipitation/temperature/winds/etc are more reliable for larger geographic domains than smaller local domains."  Looking back at the temperature and precipitation graphs, can you describe where you notice this to be true? 

Evaluate by having students interpret data and draw conclusions based on what they have learned.

• Sort It Out: El Niño or La Niña is an interactive in which students determine whether the pattern of ocean temperatures suggests El Niño, La Niña or La Nada conditions in data visualizations. Have students articulate their strategy for how to sort the data visualizations to ensure they are aware of their strategy for sorting. Ask students what the colors mean in the visualizations (red and white correlate with warmer water), and whether the pattern is exactly the same or if there is some variability. Have students write a paragraph of instructions for how to sort the images as if they were telling another player how to get the highest score in the game.
• The Return of El Niño: In this more involved activity (from The Bridge - Virginia Sea Grant) students determine if the changes they see in temperature and precipitation data from 2002-2003 were due to El Niño.