This series of ten lessons has been developed to teach students about local and global water issues. They are based on NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission. The activities are done largely outdoors and include scientific data... (View More) collection and analysis and integrate technology. Many of the lessons involve data collected based on protocols from the GLOBE Program. Each lesson is designed to take one hour; the lessons build on each other, but can also be used independently. Each lesson topic includes a lesson plan, PowerPoint presentation, student capture sheet and capture sheet answer guide. (View Less)

This set of three videos illustrates how math is used in satellite data analysis. The videos feature NASA senior climate scientist Claire Parkinson. Parkinson explains how the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice covers are measured from satellite data and... (View More) how math is used to determine trends in the data. In the first video, she leads viewers from satellite data collection through obtaining a time series of monthly average sea ice extents for November 1978 – December 2012, for the Arctic and Antarctic. In the second video, she begins with the time series from the first video, removes the seasonal cycle by calculating yearly averages, and proceeds to calculate the slopes of the lines to get trends in the data, revealing decreasing sea ice coverage in the Arctic and increasing sea ice coverage in the Antarctic. In the third video, she uses a more advanced technique to remove the seasonal cycle and shows that the trends are close to the same, whichever method is used. She emphasizes the power of math and that the techniques shown for satellite sea ice data can also be applied to a wide range of data sets. (View Less)

SciJinks is a joint NASA/NOAA educational website targeting middle school-aged children and their educators. It explores weather and Earth science through articles, videos, images, and games.

This article describes a citizen science project, Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS). Participants take and report daily measurements of precipitation at their location. SciJinks is a joint NASA/NOAA educational website... (View More) targeting middle school-aged children and their educators. It explores weather and Earth science through articles, videos, images, and games. (View Less)

This calendar shows history's most extreme weather events, month-by-month. SciJinks is a joint NASA/NOAA educational website targeting middle school-aged children and their educators. It explores weather and Earth science through articles, videos,... (View More) images, and games. (View Less)

This brief article describes Earth's gravity and it's role in keeping the atmosphere bound to Earth. SciJinks is a joint NASA/NOAA educational website targeting middle school-aged children and their educators. It explores weather and Earth science... (View More) through articles, videos, images, and games. (View Less)

This brief article explains the water cycle. SciJinks is a joint NASA/NOAA educational website targeting middle school-aged children and their educators. It explores weather and Earth science through articles, videos, images, and games.

This article explains the polar vortex: an area of low pressure (a wide expanse of swirling cold air) that is parked in polar regions. An explanation is also provided for high and low pressure systems. SciJinks is a joint NASA/NOAA educational... (View More) website targeting middle school-aged children and their educators. It explores weather and Earth science through articles, videos, images, and games. (View Less)

This gallery includes images of weather seen from above and below. SciJinks is a joint NASA/NOAA educational website targeting middle school-aged children and their educators. It explores weather and Earth science through articles, videos, images,... (View More) and games. (View Less)