The seasons on Earth are caused by the tilt of the Earth as it rotates on its axis and revolves around the Sun. Students will correlate surface radiation with mean surface temperature of several geographic regions. By observing the graphs of these parameters, students will construct an understanding of the reason for the seasons. Full description.

The purpose of this resource is to continuously measure soil and air temperature at one site. Students install four temperature probes; three are placed in the soil at three different depths and one is placed in an instrument shelter. Students use a data logger to record readings from the probes every 15 minutes. Students transfer the data to their school computers for analysis and submission to the ... Full description.

In this lesson, students learn about meteors, meteorites, and comets by reading and discussing a related New York Times article about the Leonid meteor showers and the methods that scientists are using to learn from these meteors. Students then create and observe a comet in their classroom. Full description.

This lesson allows students to explore the importance of weather prediction and the Internet's role in changing the way weather is reported. By participating in an Internet scavenger hunt, students will come to a greater appreciation of the role Internet weather prediction plays in their own lives as well as the lives of people all over the world. Full description.

The Antarctic Meteorological Research Center provides recent and archived imagery of icebergs, including movies. Icebergs from the Ross, Ronne, and Larsen ice shelves are pictured. Links to a webcam, a Frequently Asked Questions page, and other sites providing pictures and information about icebergs are also provided. Full description.

This site uses data from ocean drifting buoys to integrate ocean science into classroom science and math instruction. Opportunities exist to enhance lessons with suggested educational activities and curriculum materials developed and tested by teachers. Teachers can also use only the data, background information and reference images to supplement existing curricula. Data is collected by the National ... Full description.

This lesson plan is part of the Center for Educational Resources (CERES), a series of web-based astronomy lessons created by a team of master teachers, university faculty, and NASA researchers. Students download NASA Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images of the Martian polar ice caps from different times to measure and compare the changing Martian and Earth poles. This lesson contains expected outcomes ... Full description.

This site is designed to engage students in grades 7-12 in activities that focus on collaboration and communication strategies. These activities will strengthen student understanding of and ability to use collaborative processes and communication practices to clarify, conceptualize, and make decisions. Students will compare the risks of varying courses of action that confront scientists and engineers. ... Full description.

Students investigate the challenges of living and working in Antarctica and the technologies that help researchers meet those challenges. This six-day unit includes: teacher tools (downloadable readings, breakdowns of tasks, teacher strategies, grading sheet and rubric), an online activity (students review the preparation materials given to researchers traveling to Antarctica), classroom activities ... Full description.

The purpose of this lesson is to use NASA CERES instrument cloud data and a weather map to explore cloud coverage during a winter storm. Students will map locations using latitude and longitude coordinates as well as use a microset of satellite data to investigate cloud characteristics by applying percentage to determine cloud cover. When atmospheric scientists, including meteorologists, study weather ... Full description.