The purpose of this resource is to quantitatively evaluate the accuracy of a classification system. Students sort birds into three possible classes based on each bird's beak: carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. Students compare their answers with a given set of validation data.

The purpose of this resource is to use a land cover type map to make environmentally sound decisions.

Students will investigate variations in the soils around their school to discover that soil properties like moisture, temperature, color, and texture exhibit considerable variability across a single landscape.

Students sift soil to remove organic materials and pebbles and then re-sift the soil to separate clay and sand.

The activities in this guide will help students understand variations in environmental parameters by examining connections among different phenomena measured on local, regional, and global scales.

With this site, you can compare weather in different locations of the Earth at the same time.

Students will use GLOBE visualizations to display student data on mpas and to learn about seasonal changes in regional and global temperature patterns.

In this activity, students measure temperature change in soil, water, and air as they are exposed to the heating action of the sun. Students will understand that differential heating and cooling of land and water influences the heating of the air above them.

The purpose of this resource is to develop a classification system for a set of objects and learn about hierarchical classification systems. Any set of objects, such as insects or rocks, may be used as well.

Students will correlate graphs of vegetation vigor with those of temperature and precipitation data for four diverse ecosystems to determine which climatic factor is limiting growth.

Students will construct a sundial and use it to observe the movement of the sun through the sky over the course of a day by marking changes in the position of a shadow once each hour. Students determine the approximate time of solar noon at their school as indicated by the time of the shortest shadow. Students revisit the site on a subsequent day to estimate the time of day using their sundial.

The purpose of the resource is to produce a land cover type map from hard copies of Landsat satellite images.

The purpose of this resource is to help students understand the connection between remote sensing, computer imagery, and land cover assessment. Students translate their maps created in the beginning activity into digital code and exchange the digitized versions of their maps with students in another school.

The purpose of this resource is to familiarize students with the importance of perspective and various scales of remotely sensed data. Students create a 3-D model of an area and develop a classification system for the landforms in their model. The maps can then be used to answer certain questions about the environment.

The purpose of this resource is to investigate the center pixel of a homogeneous land Cover Site in order to understand that individual land areas are part of a larger land system.

The purpose of this resource is to investigate the idea that every dynamic system has energy and matter in different forms.

Students will use “bottle” experiments to observe changes in the decomposition of vegetable scraps. Students vary temperature, moisture, and light conditions to determine the conditions that best facilitate the decomposition of organic material in soil.

Students will explore soil and soil properties. Students collect soil samples from their homes to identify properties that characterize their soils. They will compare and contrast their samples to those of their classmates. As a class, students describe relationships between the properties of their soils and how and where they were sampled.

Students will generate a list of why soils are important; describe the five factors that form a unique soil profile and explore these concepts. Students will also be shown a demonstration of how much soil there is on Earth that is available for human use.