Intended for use after viewing the Science on a Sphere film "Water Falls," this lesson deepens student's understanding of global precipitation measurement. Students will explore NASA satellite data gathered during Hurricane Sandy to learn how that... (View More) data was essential in helping scientists forecast its path and precipitation amounts. All background information, student worksheets and images/photographs/data are included in these downloadable sections: Teacher’s Guide, Student Capture Sheet, Assessment and PowerPoint Presentation. (View Less)

This toolkit was designed to help presenters - particularly scientists and engineers - easily present to elementary and middle school audiences and feel confident that the information they are presenting is developmentally-appropriate. The site... (View More) includes PowerPoint presentations on Earth's water cycle, with talking points and suggestions. Best practices are also included for elementary and middle school presentations that provide helpful suggestions before, during, and after the presentation, as well as a list of additional resources. (View Less)

This resource is designed to enable presenters (scientists, engineers, etc.) to easily present to an elementary and/or middle school audience and feel confident that the information they are presenting is developmentally appropriate and supports the... (View More) Next Generation Science Standards. A PowerPoint Presentation includes talking points and suggestions, a “Best Practices” document to offer helpful suggestion before, during, and after the presentation, and a list of additional resources that may be accessed by the speaker and/or the educator. This presentation is designed to take 30 to 45 minutes. (View Less)

In this lesson plan students use temperature data to look at the measures of central tendency. By using mean, median, and mode, students will gain a better understanding about weather patterns from several locales throughout Virginia.

In this inquiry exploration, student design an experiment to test the absorption of heat by different earth materials. Materials required include plastic water bottles, soil, sand, water, thermometers, lamp with 60 watt bulb, and stopwatch. This... (View More) activity is part of the MY NASA DATA Scientist Tracking Network unit, designed to provide practice in accessing and using authentic satellite data. (View Less)

This is the first chapter of Meteorology: An Educator's Resource for Inquiry-based Learning, Grades 5-9. The chapter begins with a short history of meteorology, and grounds classroom exploration of meteorological concepts through a discussion of... (View More) learning science, the use of inquiry, and the levels of inquiry. Subsequent chapters provide a discussion of the the physical science behind meteorological science, and includes 14 chapters that provide lesson plans for inquiry-based explorations of those principles through student investigations. Instructions for building simple weather instruments using common household materials is included as an appendix. (View Less)

In preparation for analyzing student cloud observations taken as part of the S'COOL project, this tutorial, consisting of a 29-slide powerpoint, presents step-by-step instructions for selecting data, reviewing results, searching observations on... (View More) results, analyzing data on cloud cover, cloud layers and cloud levels, importing data into Excel, and analyzing that data. S'COOL engages students in making and reporting ground truth observations of clouds then comparing those observations with data from the CERES satellite instrument. The tutorial also includes information on how to analyze student/satellite pairs. (View Less)

Student teams explore atmospheric aerosols, dust, and fires and their impact on the Earth's albedo using NASA Earth Observations (NEO) website. This is an extension activity in the student learning activity guide accompanying the GLOBE Earth System... (View More) Poster, Exploring Connections in Year 2007. A series of six learning activities and associated assessment activities are included. (View Less)

In this activity, student teams explore connections between parts of the Earth system, by examining a time series of environmental data maps. Each team examines a single variable displayed on a global data map, and identify the unit of measure, the... (View More) range of values, and patterns they observe in the data. Variables include: insolation, surface temperature, precipitation, cloud fraction, aerosols, biopshere. This is one of six interrelated learning activities associated with the GLOBE Earth System Poster, "Exploring Connections in Year 2007," and includes a series of assessment and extension activities. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program. (View Less)

In this activity, student teams conduct a quantitative exploration of the connections between parts of the Earth system, through examination of a time series of environmental data maps. By investigating the connections between environmental data,... (View More) they see how Earth processes interact on varying time and spatial scales.This is one of six interrelated learning activities in the student activity guide associated with the GLOBE Earth System Poster, “Exploring Connections in Year 2007.” A series of assessment and extension activities are included. (View Less)