NESDIS education strives to provide educational material for teachers nationwide. Our goal is to help students understand the science behind satellite data and its impact on our world. Use the engaging educational resources, games, simulations, and videos below to help inspire the next generation of scientists.
Educational Resources Directory
Low clouds can block light from the sun, which means less solar energy. However, certain cloudy conditions can actually increase the amount of light reaching solar panels. Weather satellites such as those in the GOES-R Series keep an eye on these clouds, which can help scientists make predictions about the capture of solar energy.
Now it's my time to shine in outer space. I'm a GOES-R series weather satellite. That stands for a geostationary operational environmental satellite R series, and the R stands for my order in the series of weather satellites.
Satellites have different orbits because their orbits depend on what each satellite is designed to accomplish.
Weather is a specific event—like a rainstorm or hot day—that happens over a short period of time. Weather can be tracked within hours or days. Climate is the average weather conditions in a place over a long period of time (30 years or more).
A heat wave is a period of unusually hot weather that typically lasts two or more days. To be considered a heat wave, the temperatures have to be outside the historical averages for a given area.
Astronomy has been important to people for thousands of years. The ancient construction known as Stonehenge in England may have been designed, among other purposes, to pay special honor to the solstices and equinoxes.
If you’ve looked at a weather forecast on your TV, computer or phone, you’ve probably seen a weather map that looks something like this:
Climate is the average weather conditions in a place over a long period of time—30 years or more. And as you probably already know, there are lots of different types of climates on Earth.
