Understanding Albedo

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This activity teaches students about the albedo of surfaces and how it relates to the ice-albedo feedback effect. During an experiment, students observe the albedo of two different colored surfaces by measuring the temperature change of a white and black surface under a lamp.

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

Distinguish between causal and correlational relationships in data.

Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for phenomena.

Analyze and interpret data to determine similarities and differences in findings.

Compare and contrast various types of data sets (e.g., self-generated, archival) to examine consistency of measurements and observations.

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

Construct an explanation that includes qualitative or quantitative relationships between variables that predict(s) and/or describe(s) phenomena.

Construct an explanation using models or representations.

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.

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

Make a quantitative and/or qualitative claim regarding the relationship between dependent and independent variables.

Develop and/or use a model to generate data to test ideas about phenomena in natural or designed systems, including those representing inputs and outputs, and those at unobservable scales.

Collect data to produce data to serve as the basis for evidence to answer scientific questions or test design solutions under a range of conditions.

Earth’s systems, being dynamic and interacting, cause feedback effects that can increase or decrease the original changes.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Models can be used to predict the behavior of a system, but these predictions have limited precision and reliability due to the assumptions and approximations inherent in models.

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

Patterns can be used to identify cause-and-effect relationships.

Models are limited in that they only represent certain aspects of the system under study.

Understanding Albedo

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Science and Engineering Practices

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Crosscutting Concepts