Earth Climate Course: What Determines a Planet's Climate?

Abstract:: The Earth Climate Course: What Determines a Planets Climate? is a set of student activities and teachers guides designed to connect NASA Earth science research with the teaching and learning of core science and mathematics concepts and skills while addressing national education standards. The four modules cover: 1) Temperature Variations and Habitability, 2) Modeling Hot and Cold Planets, 3) Using Mathematical Models to Investigate Planetary Habitability, and 4) How Do Atmospheres Affect Planetary Atmospheres. Scientific inquiry and the research tools used to do research play a major role in the lessons. Presented with a science problem, students seek answers and consensus by experimenting with physical and computer models, collecting and analyzing their own measurements, and conducting comparisons with real world data from satellites and ground-based observations.- NASA missions and related Earth and space science topics provide the real world problem context for student investigations.- It aims to help students to develop an understanding of our environment as a system of human and natural processes that result in changes that occur over various space and time scales.

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Investigating the Climate System: NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission

Abstract:: This series of five problem-based learning modules is designed to bring NASA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) science into the middle school classroom. Modules for grades 5-8 include Clouds, Precipitation, Weather and Winds; the fifth module, Energy, was developed for high school-level audiences. The modules use role-playing scenarios to help students discover real-world applications of data. While these modules were developed under one series title, they were designed so that each module could be used independently.

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Abstract:: This brochure gives a brief overview of the Earth science research that is being done with data from the instruments onboard NASA's Terra spacecraft.