NOAA Sea to Sky: Education resource database

Three themed modules — Ocean Food Webs, Observations and Models, and Predators and Prey — contain 21 interactive investigations. These educational modules help high school students learn how scientist use models, or data rich representations of systems, to better understand and predict changes in environmental processes in the ocean, the weather, and climate. In these investigations, students use scientific data and models — the same ones NOAA scientists use — to explore human-caused changes in ocean ecosystems and the impacts these changes have on the animals in those ecosystems. The modules also include resources for educators, including student worksheets, NGSS alignment, and presentation graphics.

Heat related illnesses and death are largely preventable with proper planning, education, and action. Heat.gov serves as the premier source of heat and health information for the nation to reduce the health, economic, and infrastructural impacts of extreme heat. Heat.gov is the web portal for the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS). This website includes data, forecasts, safety information, and much more.

Watch. Explore. Discover. View the beauty and mystery of the ocean realm captured on video around the globe. Videos are organized into collections to help educators.

SOS Explorer® (SOSx) is a flat screen version of the widely popular Science On a Sphere® (SOS). The revolutionary software takes SOS datasets, usually only seen on a 6-foot sphere in large museum spaces, and makes them more accessible. The visualizations show information provided by satellites, ground observations and computer models.

Shocking! Within this cluster of storms, a single lightning bolt captured by NOAA satellites was recently certified by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as the world’s longest flash on record. The horizontal distance of the bolt stretched 477 miles, from the central coast of Texas to southern Mississippi, when it flashed on April 29, 2020.

The NOAA Coordinated Hurricane Atmosphere-Ocean Sampling (CHAOS) program's goals are to improve our understanding of the role of the ocean, waves, and air-sea interactions in the development and intensification of hurricanes in order to produce more accurate and reliable models and forecasts. Learn more about the early career scientists working on this program! Early career ocean professionals are defined as people who are current graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, or within 10 years since the completion of their highest graduate degree. 

This collection of six separate lessons includes tutorial videos for each themed lesson, except ecological field modeling.

1. Density dynamics: Experiment by creating four model bodies of water and observe how they compare. 
2. Ecological field monitoring: Get into the field and investigate the ecosystems in your local community using field equipment.
3. Glaciers: Investigate how topography came to be through glacial activity 33,000 years ago. Use geologic and physical tests to uncover the evidence left behind by the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Track and hunt down the path laid by ice giants of the past.  
4. Marine debris & microplastics: Discover how marine debris impacts the environment as you experiment with buoyancy and design a model ocean with circular currents.
5. Watersheds: Explore how we impact our water systems and the watersheds that sustain our population. Create a model coastal community and observe how pollutants travel within a watershed
6. Weather & climate: Explore the differences between weather and climate, look at real-time NOAA weather and climate data, experiment with sea level rise, and create coastal resiliency models.

This resource collection from NOAA Education explores different ways that we observe and forecast the weather. Observing the daily weather is part of a regular routine for many of us, helping us decide what to wear and which activities we will do each day. Similar observations of atmospheric conditions are also required by meteorologists to develop those weather forecasts with which we are all familiar.

Meteorologists at NOAA’s National Weather Service have always monitored the conditions of the atmosphere that impact the weather, but over time the equipment they use has changed. As technology advanced, our scientists began to use more efficient equipment to collect and use additional data. These technological advances enable our meteorologists to make better predictions faster than ever before.

Learn all about the water vapor in our air!