The forests of North America have seen plenty of change in a pretty short period of time, at least geologically speaking. Up until about 18,000 years ago, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered Canada and much of the eastern United States. When temperatures climbed and the ice sheet retreated, forests gradually reemerged. But how? Did pockets of trees find refuge in sheltered areas during the Ice Age? Or were all tree species pushed to the southern tier of the United States, only to spread north again after the ice disappeared? Scientists still debate the topic, but one thing is clear: today’s forests in the eastern United States bear little resemblance to post-glacial forests. Starting with European colonial settlers and marching through four centuries of development, drought, and fire, the tree cover of North America became fragmented.

This math problem determines the areas of simple and complex planar figures using measurement of mass and proportional constructs. Materials are inexpensive or easily found (poster board, scissors, ruler, sharp pencil, right angle), but also requires use of an analytical balance (suggestions are provided for working with less precise weighing tools). This resource is from PUMAS - Practical Uses of Math and Science - a collection of brief examples created by scientists and engineers showing how math and science topics taught in K-12 classes have real world applications.

As part of this activity, students learn about geologic processes on Earth in order to interpret surface features recently seen on Europa by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Materials presented here include a vocabulary list, geology jigsaw puzzle, review questions, and links to related sites.

This is a hands-on lab activity about evaporation. Learners will conduct experiments to observe the process of evaporation. They will then describe the process of evaporation, and the general water cycle, through discussion and pictures. Background information, common preconceptions, a glossary and more is included. This activity is part of the Aquarius Hands-on Laboratory Activities.

This NASA website provides a summary of a study led by NASA's David McKay that may provide evidence for past life on Mars. McKay and his team found carbonate globule features on the ALH84001 meteorite that appear to be nanofossils. In addition, secondary mineral phases and hydrocarbons provide further evidence for past life. The website features color photographs as well as links to related web pages.

Using the 5E instructional model, students discover the value of using color maps to visualize data. The activity requires students to create a color map of the ozone hole from Dobson data values derived from the Aura satellite. Students then interpret that map and compare and evaluate different color scales. Note that this is the Spanish version of Exploring Color Maps: Using Stratospheric Ozone Data.

NASA released the Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) emblem. Launching from a modernized Kennedy Space Center, EM-1 is the first integrated flight of the Orion Spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. To learn more, visit https://www.nasa.gov/content/j2m-getting-to-mars-sls-and-orion.

In this activity, student teams conduct a quantitative exploration of the connections between parts of the Earth system, through examination of a time series of environmental data maps. By investigating the connections between environmental data, they see how Earth processes interact on varying time and spatial scales.This is one of six interrelated learning activities in the student activity guide associated with the GLOBE Earth System Poster, “Exploring Connections in Year 2007.” A series of assessment and extension activities are included.

Through the use of the 5E instructional model, students discover the value of using color maps to visualize data. The activity requires students to create a color map of the ozone hole from Dobson data values derived from the Aura satellite. Students then interpret that map and compare and evaluate different color scales.

This is a lesson about using analogues to look for life on other planets. Learners will use the results of previous lessons to write a scientific proposal to explore another planet or moon in our solar system for signs of life. This proposal should predict the types of energy and nutrients available to sustain life and describe equipment and instruments necessary for exploration and characterization of the target environment. This is activity 4, the capstone activity, in Exploring Deep-Subsurface Life. Earth Analogues for Possible Life on Mars: Lessons and Activities.

This is an activity about ellipses, their focal points, and how the mathematics involved pertains to planetary orbits. Learners will draw their own ellipse using a string and pencil and calculate the minimum and maximum distance from the Sun for each of the planets. This activity requires access to the Space Weather software and is Solar System Activity 5 in a larger resource, titled Space Update.

Student teams explore atmospheric aerosols, dust, and fires and their impact on the Earth's albedo using NASA Earth Observations (NEO) website. This is an extension activity in the student learning activity guide accompanying the GLOBE Earth System Poster, Exploring Connections in Year 2007. A series of six learning activities and associated assessment activities are included.

This is a collection of mathematics problems relating to the moons of the solar system. Learners will use simple proportional relationships and work with fractions to study the relative sizes of the larger moons in our solar system, and explore how temperatures change from place to place using the Celsius and Kelvin scales.

In this activity, student teams explore connections between parts of the Earth system, by examining a time series of environmental data maps. By examining scientific visualizations of a data pair in two time slices, they will see that the environment is the result of the interplay among many processes that take place on varying time and spatial scales. This is one of six interrelated learning activities associated with the GLOBE Earth System Poster, Exploring Connections in Year 2007, which also includes a series of assessment and extension activities. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program.

In this activity, student teams explore the connections between parts of the Earth system by examining a time series of environmental data maps. They observe that the environment is the result of the interplay among many processes that take place on varying time and spatial scales, by looking at different six different variables during a single month: insolation, surface temperature, cloud fraction, aerosols, precipitation and biosphere (surface vegetation). This is one of six interrelated learning activities in the student activity guide associated with the GLOBE Earth System Poster, Exploring Connections in Year 2007. A series of assessment and extension activities are included. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program.

In this activity, student teams explore the connections between parts of the Earth system by examining a time series of environmental data maps. Each student teams examines images for two variables and determines if there is a direct or inversely proportional relationship exhibited between them throughout the year. The variable pairs that student groups are observing include: insolation and surface temperature; cloud fraction and precipitation; aerosols and biosphere. This is one of six interrelated learning activities associated with the GLOBE Earth System Poster, "Exploring Connections in Year 2007," and includes a series of assessment and extension activities. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program.

In this activity, student teams explore connections between parts of the Earth system, by examining a time series of environmental data maps. Each team examines a single variable displayed on a global data map, and identify the unit of measure, the range of values, and patterns they observe in the data. Variables include: insolation, surface temperature, precipitation, cloud fraction, aerosols, biopshere. This is one of six interrelated learning activities associated with the GLOBE Earth System Poster, "Exploring Connections in Year 2007," and includes a series of assessment and extension activities. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program.