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
Air quality is measured with the Air Quality Index, or AQI. The AQI works like a thermometer that runs from 0 to 500 degrees. However, instead of showing changes in the temperature, the AQI is a way of showing changes in the amount of pollution in the air.
Gases and particles in Earth's atmosphere scatter sunlight in all directions. Blue light is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.
Jet streams are bands of strong wind that generally blow from west to east all across the globe. They impact weather, air travel and many other things that take place in our atmosphere.
Air might feel like nothing to you and me, but it is actually super heavy. In fact, the pressure caused by all those gases in the atmosphere stacked on top of each other creates a great deal of pressure-about 14.7 pounds pressing on every inch of our body. We don't notice it because we are used to it.
Much like a river is water moving over land, an atmospheric river is a stream of water vapor moving in the sky.
In this rainbow simulator, change the position of the Sun and the viewpoint of the person to see how angles and distances affect the rainbow you can see. Drag the Sun up and down and the person side to side to get started.
Contrails form when water vapor from an airplane’s exhaust condenses and freezes, forming clouds made of ice crystals
Below, the image to the left is an example of an infrared (IR) image. Infrared light is invisible to the human eye, but we can see it with specialized instruments, such as the radiometers flown on the GOES weather satellites.
