CLEAN Webinars for secondary level educators: April 11, 2011 Webinar


It's a Feast! Climate Resources Galore on NASA's Global Climate Change Website

Laura Faye Tenenbaum, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab

NASA Webinar - PowerPoint Slides (PowerPoint 18.5MB Apr8 11)
NASA Webinar - PDF Slides (Acrobat (PDF) 21.6MB Apr8 11)
NASA Webinar recording (MP3 Audio 20.9MB Apr13 11)

Webinar goal - To familiarize participants with the wealth of resources available on NASA's Global Climate Change website and provide suggestions about using selected resources in the classroom.

Time - 4 pm Pacific | 5 pm Mountain | 6 pm Central | 7 pm Eastern

Duration - 1 hour. The presentation will be approximately 45 minutes followed by 15 minutes of discussion.

Format - Audio via toll-free conference line; video via slides posted on CLEAN website

Registration - There is no registration fee, but registration is required to save a space. Because space is limited to 25, please be sure you can commit before registering. Registration is Closed - we have reached 25 participants.

Contact - For questions contact Marian Grogan at TERC (marian_grogan AT terc.edu)

About the Speaker:

Laura Faye Tenenbaum is an adjunct faculty in the physical sciences department at Glendale Community College in the Los Angeles area. She also works as an education specialist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory as part of the Climate Change Communication Team which was awarded a 2010 Webby People's Voice Award for Best Science Website.

Resources from the CLEAN collection that feature NASA data and/or tools:

  • Using NASA NEO and ImageJ to Explore the Role of Snow Cover in Shaping Climate - 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.
  • Is Greenland Melting? - A data-centric activity where students explore the connections between an observable change in the cryosphere and its potential impact in the hydrosphere and atmosphere by analyzing the melt extents on the Greenland ice sheet from 1992-2003.
  • Why is Carbon Important? - Students explore the carbon cycle and the relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and temperature. Students create and compare graphs of carbon dioxide and temperature data from one local (Mauna Loa, Hawaii) meteorological station and one NASA global data set.
  • Effect of the Sun's Energy on the Ocean and Atmosphere - In this mock mission, students become members of a research team and conduct a series of tasks to audit Earth's radiative budget. They use a Java Applet/visual viewer to access satellite data sets and calculate the balance of incoming and outgoing solar radiation, and defend their answers to a number of science questions.
  • Tropical Atlantic Aerosols - Students use real satellite data to determine 1) where the greatest concentrations of aerosols are located during the course of a year in the tropical Atlantic region and 2) their source of origin. This is an inquiry style lesson where students pull real aerosol data and attempt to identify trends among data sets.
  • Coral Bleaching in the Caribbean - Students examine NASA satellite data to determine if sea surface temperature has reached a point that would cause coral bleaching in the Caribbean.
  • Ocean Currents and Sea Surface Temperature - Students access sea surface temperature and wind speed data from a NASA site, plot data, compare data, and draw conclusions about surface current and sea surface temperature and link their gained understanding to concerns about global climate change.
  • March of the Polar Bears: Global Change, Sea Ice, and Wildlife Migration - Students use NASA satellite data to study changes in temperature and snow-ice coverage in the South Beaufort Sea, Alaska, correlate with USGS ground tracking of polar bears, and relate this to global change, sea ice changes, and polar bear migration and survival.
  • Ocean Impacts on an El Nino Event - This lesson explores El Nino by looking at sea surface temperature, sea surface height, and wind vectors in order to seek out any correlations there may be among these three variables, using the My NASA Data Live Access Server.


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