Visitors to this resource will find information about U.S. marine sanctuaries - their history and current management, their scientific and educational programs, and their continuing efforts to conserve our nation's ocean and coastal treasures. A national calendar provides information on the many exciting events that take place in the sanctuaries throughout the year. Within the 13 sections of the site, ... Full description.

This lesson is designed to help students gain knowledge in using the MY NASA DATA Live Access Server (LAS) to specify and download a microset of data, then to use the data to estimate percentage of snow cover for each continent. The data used in this lesson come from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP). ISCCP computes fractional snow and ice coverage by scanning the Earth ... Full description.

The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is a coalition of small island and low-lying coastal countries that share concerns about the environment, especially their vulnerability to the adverse effects of global climate change. It functions primarily as a negotiating voice for small island developing States (SIDS) within the United Nations system. The site provides information about the island states ... Full description.

Water is one of Earth's most unique and valuable resources. Thus, the distribution of water on Earth is a very important factor in the evaluation of global climate and its impact on life. In this lesson, students will use historical satellite data to examine precipitable water -- a measure of the water available in the atmosphere from evaporation (in the form of water vapor). They will then compare ... Full description.

The atmosphere is a mixture of gases including nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and other trace gases. Additionally, the atmosphere contains small, suspended liquid and particle matter called aerosols. Aerosols come from various sources, both natural and anthropogenic (man-made). Aerosols are important to study and monitor because they have direct and indirect effects on regional weather and global ... Full description.

El Nino and La Nina are important temperature fluctuations in surface waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean. In this lesson, students will create maps and line graphs of data to compare the effects of El Nino and La Nina at two different longitudinal locations, but at the same latitude, using sea surface temperature and precipitation from real satellite data. Full description.

The Sun heats the Earth, but the Earth also emits some of the heat back into space. The net amount of energy determines not only seasonal weather, but also climate trends. According to NOAA, monthly snow and ice amounts have declined over the past decade. By matching maps of snow and ice amounts with maps of net radiation flux for the same time frame, this lesson will give students the opportunity ... Full description.

Using the Internet as a resource to locate and graph scientific data, students will explore the seasonal changes in precipitation for the Costa Rican Region. They will generate and analyze satellite data for precipitation to identify the two seasons of Costa Rica and relate their importance to the travel industry. Full description.

In this lesson, students will play the role of a senior science advisor for the Louisiana Environmental Agency. Due to the recent damaging and deadly hurricanes during 2005 (i.e., Hurricane Katrina) through 2008, they, along with their team of climatologists, meteorologists, and environmental impact experts, have been tasked to study the danger of future tropical storms. Specifically, they will investigate ... Full description.

In recent years more and more attention has been paid to the Earth's climate and how it is evolving. When studying hurricanes it is important to understand that, for a hurricane to grow, warm water is an absolute necessity. So if the Earth continues to warm, what does that mean for hurricanes and their intensity? In this lesson, the student will look at past hurricane data by researching the intensity ... Full description.