This series of activities is designed to introduce students to the role of sediments and sedimentary rocks in the global carbon cycle. Students learn how stable carbon isotopes can be used to reconstruct ancient sedimentary environments. Students will make some simple calculations, formulate hypotheses, and think about the implications of their results. The activity includes an optional demonstration of the density separation of a sediment sample into a light, organic fraction and a heavier, mineral fraction.

We are used to seeing weather every day. Some days it’s sunny, some days it’s rainy, some days it’s snowy. Those types of weather usually do not put us at risk. But what about severe weather? In this seminar you will apply your prior knowledge of weather and learn what is new about severe weather. You will also discover different types of severe weather. By the end of this seminar, you will be able to classify severe weather based on its conditions.StandardsStandard- 3.3.4.A5Describe basic weather elements. Identify weather patterns over time.

Students take virtual field trips to explore air quality research sites and investigate the causes, effects, and solutions to nitrogen deposition in Rocky Mountain National Park during this module.

Find out how air holds its shape when put to the test in this episode of Smithsonian Science Starters with Hubble Astronaut Megan McArthur.

Solar scientists need you! Help them spot explosions on the Sun and track them across space to Earth. Your work will give astronauts an early warning if dangerous solar radiation is headed their way. And you could make a new scientific discovery.

Students are given the following engineering challenge: "The invasion has taken place and we need to find a new home. To ensure your survival beyond Earth's occupation you must design a shelter that can be built on another planet." Then students research the characteristics of a planet of their choosing. They design shelter that enables them to survive on a new planet, and explain it in words to the rest of the class. This is a great activity to add to a unit on the solar system.

looks at how the sun creates a changing set of conditions in space. Learn about coronal holes, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, solar wind, magnetosphere, and auroras. See photos, graphs, and live data. Make your own space weather predictions.

This lesson introduces students to the space environment. It covers the major differences between the environment on Earth and that of outer space and the engineering challenges that arise because of these discrepancies. In order to prepare students for the upcoming lessons on the human body, this lesson challenges them to think about how their bodies would change and adapt in the unique environment of space.

In this hands-on activity, participants learn the characteristics of the five layers of the atmosphere and make illustrations to represent them. They roll the drawings and place them in clear plastic cylinders, and then stack the cylinders to make a model column of the atmosphere.

Students learn that wind and storms can form at the boundaries of interacting high and low pressure air masses. They learn the distinguishing features of the four main types of weather fronts (warm fronts, cold fronts, stationary fronts and occluded fronts) and how those fronts are depicted on a surface weather analysis, or weather map. Students also learn several different ways that engineers help with storm prediction, analysis and protection.

This article provides elementary school teachers with background knowledge about science concepts needed to understand the first of seven essential principles of climate literacy--the sun is the primary source of energy for our climate system. Graphs, diagrams, and oneline resources provide more background for the teacher. The article appears in a free online magazine that focuses on the seven essential princples of the climate sciences.

This course presents the phenomena, theory, and modeling of turbulence in the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. The scope ranges from centimeter to planetary scale motions. The regimes of turbulence include homogeneous isotropic three dimensional turbulence, convection, boundary layer turbulence, internal waves, two dimensional turbulence, quasi-geostrophic turbulence, and macrotrubulence in the ocean and atmosphere.

This course presents the phenomena, theory, and modeling of turbulence in the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. The scope ranges from centimeter to planetary scale motions. The regimes of turbulence include homogeneous isotropic three dimensional turbulence, convection, quasi-geostrophic turbulence, shallow water turbulence, baroclinic turbulence, macroturbulence in the ocean and atmosphere.

In this intermediate Excel activity, students import US Historical Climate Network mean temperature data into Excel from a station of their choice. They are then guided through the activity on how to use Excel for statistical calculations, graphing, and linear trend estimates. The activity assumes some familiarity with Excel and graphing in Excel.

Explore pressure under and above water. See how pressure changes as you change fluids, gravity, container shapes, and volume.

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.

This list of children's books recommends nonfiction titles that supplement basic information found in lessons and activities of this themed issue of the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle. The books are grouped by topic -- water, weather and climate, and atmosphere. Each book is described by its content, reading level, and possible uses in the classroom. Covers are pictured. The online magazine is produced for elementary school teachers and is structured around the essential principles of climate sciences and climate literacy.

In this article, teachers find two unit plans (grades K-2 and 3-5) that use resources featured in the science and literacy articles in the magazine. The unit plans are modeled after the five key steps in the learning cycle: engage, explore, explain, expand, and assess, or evaluate. The plans are aligned with the science content standards of the National Science Education Standards and the English language arts standards of the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association. The plans appear in the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle.

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.

In this Earth Exploration Toolbook chapter, students select, explore, and analyze satellite imagery. They do so in the context of a case study of the origins of atmospheric carbon monoxide and aerosols, tiny solid airborne particles such as smoke from forest fires and dust from desert wind storms. They use the software tool ImageJ to animate a year of monthly images of aerosol data and then compare the animation to one created for monthly images of carbon monoxide data. Students select, explore, and analyze satellite imagery using NASA Earth Observatory (NEO) satellite data and NEO Image Composite Explorer (ICE) tool to investigate seasonal and geographic patterns and variations in concentration of CO and aerosols in the atmosphere.