9th – 12th grade & undergraduate | Teacher guide | Links to standards
Observe the movement of elephant seals, laysan albatross, northern bluefin tuna, and white sharks from the Tagging of Pacific Predators Project (TOPP) in a student-friendly interactive map. This site includes lesson plans and teacher’s guides for high school and undergraduate courses.
Interactive map | Numerical data | Graph/figure
6th – 12th grade | Teacher guide | Links to standards
This collection uses real-time environmental data in self-directed student activities exploring the natural world. Students learn about carbon cycling, ocean acidification, and other phenomena related to climate change. These modules are designed with a three-dimensional approach to teaching in mind and use a data literacy framework.
Interactive map | Numerical data | Graph/figure
5th – 12th grade | Teacher guide | Links to standards
Data in the Classroom has structured, student-directed lesson plans that use historical and real-time NOAA data. The five modules address research questions and include stepped levels of engagement with complex inquiry investigations with real-time and past data.
Interactive map | Numerical data | Satellite imagery | Graph/figure | Modeled/predicted
6th – 12th grade | Teacher guide
Data Lens activities equip teachers with tools to help their students engage with and understand complex scientific data from NOAA. Informed by Visual Thinking Strategies offsite link, each exercise includes a timely global map that can stand alone or open a discussion into a relevant classroom unit of study. When used regularly, these activities may help to increase data literacy skills in your classroom.
Interactive map | Modeled/predicted
9th – 12th grade | Teacher guide | Links to standards
This module includes maps of U.S. drought data (2010–2018) and the world (2013–2018) as well as maps of U.S. drought risk projections until 2095. Students will use these resources to observe seasonal patterns and identify the drought risk for different areas. This activity includes background reading and discussion questions.
Interactive map | Modeled/predicted
6th – 12th grade | Teacher guide | Links to standards
Estuaries 101 helps students and teachers increase their knowledge of coastal and estuarine science and how estuaries affect their daily lives. The curriculum modules in Estuaries 101 feature hands-on learning experiments, field work, interactive maps, and data explorations using data from NOAA’s network of 28 National Estuarine Research Reserves.
Interactive map | Numerical data | Graph/figure
6th – 12th grade | Teacher guide | Links to standards
NOAA monitors estuary health using the System-wide Monitoring Program to track water quality, weather, and nutrient data. The data shows human activities and natural events affect coastal habitats. For example, by examining the data records, you can visualize short-term events like hurricanes and long-term events like warming climates. These data mysteries are based on actual events and use NOAA data. Each mystery contains background information and interactive data products to use to learn more about real world events, data, and estuaries.
Interactive map | Numerical data | Graph/figure
3rd – 12th grade | Teacher guide | Links to standards
What do world-traveling plastic toys, biodiversity in the deep sea, climate change and the last great unexplored area on Earth have in common? The critical need for ocean literacy! The ocean is often neglected in our schools, yet it comprises 71% of Earth’s surface. Life on Earth evolved in and depends on our global ocean. This collection of 17 lessons use the National Marine Sanctuary System as an engaging backdrop that helps students understand their importance for exploration, research, Indigenous cultures and more.
Interactive map | Numerical data | Graph/figure | Modeled/predicted | Imagery
9th – 12th grade | Teacher guide | Links to standards
This lesson uses Alaska Groundfish Survey Data from NOAA Fisheries to guide students in developing a research question and understanding the data acquisition process. Students use evidence to draw conclusions.
Interactive map | Numerical data
K – 12th grade & undergraduate | Teacher guide | Links to standards
View data collected by teachers and students participating in the GLOBE Program and long-term air temperature and precipitation observations from the Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN).
While lessons for data collection and other activities are a part of the GLOBE website, specific lessons for manipulation of this data are not provided at this link.
Interactive map | Numerical data | Graph/figure
9th – 12th grade & undergraduate | Teacher guide | Links to standards
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.
Numerical data | Graph/figure | Modeled/predicted
4th – 12th grade | Teacher guide | Links to standards
Explore lessons, datasets, and inquiry projects designed for educators interested in Great Lakes science. Modules can be mixed and matched. The Great Lakes FieldScope allows students to examine data from rivers and streams, watershed boundaries, political boundaries, elevation, and land cover.
Numerical data | Graph/figure
9th – 12th grade | Teacher guide | Links to standards
Students explore specific sea floor discoveries (case studies) using step-by-step tool guides for the Ocean Exploration Digital Atlas (a searchable, interactive expedition data map) and authentic interactive mapping data visualization software.
Interactive map
3rd – 8th grade | Teacher guide | Links to standards
This online activity uses data from the South Puget Sound waterways to teach the importance of water quality, different water quality parameters we test for, and environmental and human factors that influence water quality. More resources and a teacher guide can be found here offsite link.
Numerical data | Graph/figure
9th – 12th grade | Teacher guide | Links to standards
This escape room style activity encourages students to use satellite maps, data, and imagery to solve the mystery of a missing person using clues. Students will be exposed to actual satellite imagery of the ocean and test their graph reading skills.
Numerical data | Graph/figure | Map