NOAA Sea to Sky: Education resource database

Learn all about the water cycle with this overview video. 

This data animation shows atmospheric carbon dioxide from 1979 through 2021. Following that time series, the animation compares the levels to preindustrial levels and the ice ages. The animation is downloadable.

Blue Planet provides viewers with an overview of how water shapes our planet and nearly every aspect of our lives. Using data sets from a variety of sources, including NOAA and NASA, the movie presents water as the driver of Earth's dynamic systems, the source of all life on the planet, and it underscores just how rare and precious Earth's fresh water resource is. Blue Planet is a seven minute, narrated movie that was produced for the traveling exhibition WATER: H2O=Life.*

Here are three hands-on games you can use to simulate the Carbon Cycle. This includes instructions and printable game pieces.

The CIRES/NOAA Science-at-Home webinars connected middle and high school classrooms in the virtual/remote learning landscape with Earth scientists. Topics include sea ice, glaciers, hurricanes, wildfires, remote sensing, climate change, and more.

Accurate education about climate and energy topics has never been more important, and it can be challenging to locate reliable, vetted educational materials to use in your classroom. CLEAN is here to help you find the resources that you need, without wondering about their scientific credibility or educational value. Search for resources by NGSS Performance Expectations (PE) and Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI), grade level, keyword or resource type, or use CLEAN to design your own unit.

This unit will introduce you to the basics of the carbon cycle. You will learn how the carbon cycle, climate and the abiotic and biotic components of the environment influence each other in many ways. You will learn how carbon moves throughout the different components of the carbon cycle and where carbon is stored in the Earth's system. Using case studies, NASA visualizations, current research, and interactives, you will explore how living things on land, in soils, and in our ocean regulate the carbon cycle. Because carbon, climate and the environment are tightly coupled, you will analyze the effect of carbon dioxide on the Earth's thermostat and our climate. Finally, you will seek possible solutions to a warming climate.

Healthy coastal habitat is not only important for seafood and recreation, it also plays an important role in reducing climate change. In this episode of Making Waves, NOAA environmental scientist Ariana Sutton-Grier talks about coastal blue carbon, or carbon stored in coastal and ocean ecosystems. A transcript of the podcast is also available.

The unit teaches students to interpret climate data to recognize the symptoms and evaluate the severity of drought. It helps them realize that drought can still devastate areas that have stable infrastructure and access to expensive technologies. The unit raises awareness of the need to be prepared to face drought conditions that may become more common as our planet warms.

FROZEN features the global cryosphere, those places on Earth where the temperature doesn't generally rise above water's freezing point. As one of the most directly observable climate gauges, the changing cryosphere serves as a proxy for larger themes. The movie brings the Earth alive, projected onto spherical movie screens hanging in the center of darkened theaters. Turning in space, the sphere becomes a portal onto a virtual planet, complete with churning, swirling depictions of huge natural forces moving below.