Visualizing Carbon Pathways

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This activity introduces students to visualization capabilities available through NASA's Earth Observatory, global map collection, NASA NEO and ImageJ. Using these tools, students build several animations of satellite data that illustrate carbon pathways through the Earth system.

HS-ESS3-6 Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity.

Use graphical displays (e.g., maps, charts, graphs, and/or tables) of large data sets to identify temporal and spatial relationships.

Analyze data using tools, technologies, and/or models (e.g., computational, mathematical) in order to make valid and reliable scientific claims or determine an optimal design solution.

Ask questions that arise from careful observation of phenomena, models, or unexpected results, to clarify and/or seek additional information.

Ask questions that arise from careful observation of phenomena, or unexpected results, to clarify and/or seek additional information.

Apply scientific ideas, principles, and/or evidence to construct, revise and/or use an explanation for real-world phenomena, examples, or events.

Apply scientific reasoning, theory, and/or models to link evidence to the claims to assess the extent to which the reasoning and data support the explanation or conclusion.

Use digital tools (e.g., computers) to analyze very large data sets for patterns and trends.

Create and/or revise a computational model or simulation of a phenomenon, designed device, process, or system.

Develop and/or revise a model to show the relationships among variables, including those that are not observable but predict observable phenomena.

Develop, revise, and/or use a model based on evidence to illustrate and/or predict the relationships between systems or between components of a system.

The foundation for Earth’s global climate systems is the electromagnetic radiation from the sun, as well as its reflection, absorption, storage, and redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and land systems, and this energy’s re-radiation into space.

Current models predict that, although future regional climate changes will be complex and varied, average global temperatures will continue to rise. The outcomes predicted by global climate models strongly depend on the amounts of human-generated greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere each year and by the ways in which these gases are absorbed by the ocean and biosphere.

All Earth processes are the result of energy flowing and matter cycling within and among the planet’s systems. This energy is derived from the sun and Earth’s hot interior. The energy that flows and matter that cycles produce chemical and physical changes in Earth’s materials and living organisms.

Different patterns may be observed at each of the scales at which a system is studied and can provide evidence for causality in explanations of phenomena.

The total amount of energy and matter in closed systems is conserved.

Cause and effect relationships can be suggested and predicted for complex natural and human designed systems by examining what is known about smaller scale mechanisms within the system.

Models (e.g., physical, mathematical, computer models) can be used to simulate systems and interactions—including energy, matter, and information flows—within and between systems at different scales.

The significance of a phenomenon is dependent on the scale, proportion, and quantity at which it occurs.

Time, space, and energy phenomena can be observed at various scales using models to study systems that are too large or too small.

Matter is conserved because atoms are conserved in physical and chemical processes.

Models can be used to represent systems and their interactions—such as inputs, processes and outputs—and energy and matter flows within systems.

Change and rates of change can be quantified and modeled over very short or very long periods of time. Some system changes are irreversible.

Phenomena may have more than one cause, and some cause and effect relationships in systems can only be described using probability.

Graphs, charts, and images can be used to identify patterns in data.

Patterns in rates of change and other numerical relationships can provide information about natural systems.

Explanations of stability and change in natural or designed systems can be constructed by examining the changes over time and processes at different scales, including the atomic scale.

Visualizing Carbon Pathways

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