Take the time and energy learn about Earth's energy budget. An engaging unit of four lessons focuses on the components that make up Earth's energy budget. Future scientists come up with a formula for the energy budget, then use software to determine how incoming solar radiation and outgoing energy change with latitude and with the seasons. They investigate the energy budget for various cities and consider how climate change will affect those locations.

Concepts

energy, solar radiation, climate change, latitude and longitude, the four seasons, statistics, angle of incidence, energy balance, energy flow

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Additional Tags

science

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Instructional Ideas

• Invite a math teacher to co-teach lesson one of the unit on deriving the energy budget equation
• Use the activities as part of an Earth Science lab
  

Classroom Considerations

• Facilitators will want to review the Panoply and RStudio programs before using them with the class
  

Pros

• Provides student worksheets, including detailed instructions on how to download and use software programs for the unit
  
• Gives a rubric for the activities
  

Cons

• None

Common Core

RST.9-10.1 RST.9-10.2 RST.9-10.7 HSA-SSE.A.1.b