K-12 Educational Resources

Lesson materials for looking at the climate crisis as a collection of challenges to tackle rather than trying to solve the entire climate crisis and sharing examples of how youth across the globe have taken action to support climate change mitigation and adaptation with your students can provide inspiration, motivation, and increase efficacy.

First decadal carbon cycle science plan

Introducing the concept of anthropogenic carbon in classrooms and fostering a classroom environment where discussion is welcome. Invite students to voice their doubts, fears, or uncertainties.

The resources on this page will help you learn and teach about carbon, climate and NASA’s research. Resources include lesson plans and activities, multimedia and interactives, articles, and infographics.

These lesson plans are written in a modular format designed to accommodate varying
amounts of class time dedicated to the study of climate change and carbon.

Activities, worksheets, and simulations to engage middle schoolers in a gamified lesson about carbon.

In this active demonstration, students will model the carbon cycle, and consider way in which human actions play a role.

Framework for project ideas, experiments, school collaboration and more.

The simple calculator below allows you to play around with this relationship. The calculator starts with 2010 levels for carbon dioxide and temperature.

Education and Training Catalog.

Students engage with 8 resources (readings, interactives, videos, modeling activities) to investigate the cycling of carbon dioxide among the hydrosphere, atmosphere, geosphere, and biosphere. Through a series of learning experiences, students view short video clips, graph, model, and analyze CO2 data, and work with several interactive modeling online resources.

An open-access scientific journal for kids reviewed by kids.

This demonstration uses a water balloon to show how Earth's oceans are absorbing most of the heat being trapped on our warming world.

The natural greenhouse effect is a common area of misunderstanding. Educators should strive to explain this concept in a way that is as simple as possible but is still accurate.

Article and figures explaining how the ocean and climate are connected and how they impact each other.

Video detailing satellite imagery’s role in documenting Earth’s change.

This activity asks students to begin to consider the life cycle energy and carbon dioxide emission costs of gasoline, corn ethanol, and cellulosic ethanol.

Videos, instructional tutorials, and articles detailing information on how to understand and work with carbon data.

This catalog of learning resources draws from NASA science content. You can search this collection using key words and/or the drop down filters to pinpoint resources to use with your audience of learners.

Collection of NASA developed games, videos, websites, and activities.

Introduction to the greenhouse effect at a younger level.

Compilation of teaching and education resources compiled in an article.

Education resources are distributed across many websites and program offices at NOAA and partner websites. This portal is designed to help you access these resources from one location. Materials are organized by themes aligned with common teaching topics.

Carbon and greenhouse gas related resource compilation with videos, articles, activities and more

The PMEL Carbon Group has been involved in the development of a variety of educational tools for educators, students, and the broader public that describe the ocean carbon cycle and how it is changing over time.

Overview of the state of Carbon Dioxide Removal for different audience levels.

Create a carbon dioxide–rich atmosphere in a cup and watch how it changes the water beneath it. This model of ocean-atmosphere interaction shows how carbon dioxide gas diffuses into water, causing the water to become more acidic.

Videos, graphics, book recommendations and more resources.

Graph carbon dioxide data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to learn about natural cycles and unnatural changes in our atmosphere.

Lesson plans, simulations, Google Earth data and more to explore how emissions reduction can help limit climate change.

​Skype a Scientist has a database of thousands of scientists and helps them connect with classrooms, families, libraries, scout troops, and more all over the globe.

High level overview of the current state of the global carbon cycle.

Students develop concept maps of the carbon cycle through a die-rolling game that simulates carbon reservoirs and fluxes.

Article with supplemental material overviewing greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect.

An important part of understanding sea-level rise is understanding thermal expansion of water. Thermal expansion accounts for about half of the measured global sea-level rise. Students will build a model using everyday items to demonstrate that water expands when heat energy is added.

Exploring Earth systems, experiments, lab tours and field trips, teacher training and more.

Video, article, and figures explaining what climate models are and how scientists use them to understand Earth.

Printable card deck gamifying and personifying different greenhouse gases.

Video, article, and figures detailing what causes air pollution, how it affects Earth and humans, and how it stays trapped.

Short article explaining what units we use to quantify carbon dioxide.

Building up from the very simple concept of a physical theory to the complicated behavior of a real physical system is the job of a model. The best way to learn what a model does is simply to create one, which will be done in this activity.
 

Article, video, and figures explaining climate vs weather, climate change, how we study climate change, and what the implications of climate change are.

Short article discussing global mean temperature, how it is changing, and what that means.

This page provides introductory information on the carbon cycle and relevant links to help explore more information on this important element that is the cornerstone of life.

Short article and figures overviewing the carbon cycle and how NASA studies carbon dioxide.

Kinetic activity that overviews why some gases are greenhouse gases while others are not.

Overview of each layer of the atmosphere and what it is composed of.

Interactive page overviewing the carbon cycle and different carbon sinks and fluxes.

The World Climate Simulation immerses participants in the roles of national leaders and regional officials, challenging them to negotiate policies that will limit climate change.