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
Zap! You just touched a metal doorknob after shuffling your rubber-soled feet across the carpet. Yipes! You've been struck by lightning! Well, not really, but it's the same idea.
An ice jam, or ice dam, happens when chunks of ice clump together to block the flow of a river. Ice jams are caused by melting snow and ice in the springtime.
A gust front is a line of dangerously gusty winds created by certain weather conditions. When a downdraft from a raining thunderstorm hits the ground, it spreads out in all directions. This spreading air can move very fast, and as it spreads, it can create a gust front.
"Hurricane Simulation" WebApp Courtesy of the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS). Copyright 2013 by Tom Whittaker at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Snowflakes form when water vapor travels through the air and condenses on a particle. This begins to form a slowly growing ice crystal--a snowflake! There are two basic ways that the vapor can condense, and each way plays a big role in the shape that the snowflake will eventually take.
The first lightning detector made the invention of the radio possible. Lightning and radio may sound like unrelated concepts, but they are more similar than you might think.
That was the call that Frederick Fleet, a 24-year-old lookout on the RMS Titanic, sent to the ship’s brig on the evening of April 14, 1912.
Clouds are made of water droplets. Within a cloud, water droplets condense onto one another, causing the droplets to grow. When these water droplets get too heavy to stay suspended in the cloud, they fall to Earth as rain.
