There are several factors that influence the climate or prevailing weather conditions for any given location on Earth. The most important factor is the latitude of the location because that affects the amount of solar radiation received throughout the year. Other factors include its distance from a body of water (its moisture source), elevation and local topography. In this 6 to 10 day unit plan, ... Full description.

Project SkyMath is a mathematics module for middle school students, developed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). The goal of the pilot project is to demonstrate that acquiring and using current environmental and real-time weather data in middle school classrooms, in ways that embrace the dynamic and the uncertain natures of these data, will promote the teaching and learning ... Full description.

This resource covers basic astronomy, Newtonian mechanics, the Sun and related topics (weather, electromagnetic waves, nuclear energy), and space flight. The material stresses space applications, history, and intuitive content, and includes a brief refresher course on algebra and trigonometry. It is also available in Spanish. Full description.

Students will make predictions by linking current scientific satellite data to concerns about global climate change. Using maps of sea surface temperature (SST) and ocean surface winds, students will learn how differential heating of Earth results in circulation patterns in the atmosphere and oceans that globally distribute the heat. Students will learn the relationship between the rotation of Earth ... Full description.

Scientists have recently been reporting that the average temperature of the Earth has been rising, usually referred to as 'global warming'. What is the evidence for this change? One piece of evidence could come from patterns of snow (on land) and ice (either sea ice floating on the oceans or glaciers on land) on the Earth - if the snow and ice are disappearing, it would indicate rising average temperatures. ... Full description.

Back in the days of Christopher Columbus, voyages made across bodies of water were dependent upon winds and currents to drive the sailing ships. Thus good navigation routes were often determined by prevailing weather conditions such as the Trade Winds, and then discovered by explorers. In this lesson, students will explore the wind climatology for the Atlantic Ocean basin (as determined by satellite ... Full description.

Students often hear that winters were colder or had more snow in the past. This activity will help them to determine if this is a true or accurate statement for their location. Students will access historic weather information from NOAA and NASA internet resources. They will determine changes in average temperatures, precipitation and cloud cover over time from data and relate global changes to local ... 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.

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.