Using NASA NEO and ImageJ to Explore the Role of Snow Cover in Shaping Climate

Type of Resource: Link

Reviews

No reviews

Be the first to write a review

Description

In this activity students download satellite images displaying land surface temperature, snow cover, and reflected short wave radiation data from the NASA Earth Observation (NEO) Web site. They then explore and animate these images using the free tool ImageJ and utilize the Web-based analysis tools built into NEO to observe, graph, and analyze the relationships among these three variables.

HS-ESS3-5 Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.

MS-ESS2-6 Develop and use a model to describe how unequal heating and rotation of the Earth cause patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation that determine regional climates.

Construct, analyze, and/or interpret graphical displays of data and/or large data sets to identify linear and nonlinear relationships.

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

Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for phenomena.

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 can be investigated within the scope of the classroom, outdoor environment, and museums and other public facilities with available resources and, when appropriate, frame a hypothesis based on observations and scientific principles.

Ask questions to determine relationships, including quantitative relationships, between independent and dependent variables.

Construct a scientific explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from sources (including the students’ own experiments) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe the natural world operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

Construct and revise an explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from a variety of sources (including students’ own investigations, models, theories, simulations, peer review) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe the natural world operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

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.

Construct, use, and/or present an oral and written argument supported by empirical evidence and scientific reasoning to support or refute an explanation or a model for a phenomenon or a solution to a problem.

Construct, use, and/or present an oral and written argument or counter-arguments based on data and evidence.

Apply ratios, rates, percentages, and unit conversions in the context of complicated measurement problems involving quantities with derived or compound units (such as mg/mL, kg/m3, acre-feet, etc.).

Communicate scientific and/or technical information (e.g. about a proposed object, tool, process, system) in writing and/or through oral presentations.

Communicate scientific and/or technical information or ideas (e.g. about phenomena and/or the process of development and the design and performance of a proposed process or system) in multiple formats (including orally, graphically, textually, and mathematically).

Conduct an investigation and/or evaluate and/or revise the experimental design to produce data to serve as the basis for evidence that meet the goals of the investigation.

Make directional hypotheses that specify what happens to a dependent variable when an independent variable is manipulated.

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.

Weather and climate are influenced by interactions involving sunlight, the ocean, the atmosphere, ice, landforms, and living things. These interactions vary with latitude, altitude, and local and regional geography, all of which can affect oceanic and atmospheric flow patterns.

The complex patterns of the changes and the movement of water in the atmosphere, determined by winds, landforms, and ocean temperatures and currents, are major determinants of local weather patterns.

Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects.

Changes of energy and matter in a system can be described in terms of energy and matter flows into, out of, and within that system.

Much of science deals with constructing explanations of how things change and how they remain stable.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed—it only moves between one place and another place, between objects and/or fields, or between systems.

Feedback (negative or positive) can stabilize or destabilize a system.

Cause and effect relationships may be used to predict phenomena in natural or designed systems.

Energy drives the cycling of matter within and between systems.

The transfer of energy can be tracked as energy flows through a designed or natural system.

Energy may take different forms (e.g. energy in fields, thermal energy, energy of motion).

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

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

Systems may interact with other systems; they may have sub-systems and be a part of larger complex systems.

Within a natural or designed system, the transfer of energy drives the motion and/or cycling of matter.

Using NASA NEO and ImageJ to Explore the Role of Snow Cover in Shaping Climate

Reviews

Description

Performance Expectations

Science and Engineering Practices

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Crosscutting Concepts