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NAAMES Program Education & Outreach

NAAMES Educational Chats


November 17, 2015

Ms. Scribner's class from Eisenhower High School in Kansas Ms. Scribner's class from Eisenhower High School in Kansas
On Tuesday, November 17, 2015 NAAMES Educational Chats reached 99 students and 3 teachers in 5 classrooms located in Maryland, Illinois and Kansas.
The images shown above are from Ms. Scribner’s class from Eisenhower High School in Kansas.

NASA GSFC YouTube Feature

ClimateBits: Phytoplankton

September 21, 2017





Mission Tools Suite for Education

The Mission Tools Suite for Education (MTSE) connects K-12 Classrooms from across the United States and around the world with NASA Airborne Science Program NAAMES scientists during the course of each deployment.
Students and teachers can track the position of the C-130 aircraft in real-time and view live camera feeds from
a high definition camera onboard the aircraft. Satellite data products and environmental data from the aircraft
allow students to plot aircraft altitude, speed, temperature, wind speed, etc. in real-time.
Live text chats between classrooms and the NAAMES aircraft scientists allow students and teachers to ask questions
directly through the website with login information that we provide to them. Multiple classrooms can log in during the same flight.
Chat scheduling and organization coordinated before and during the flights by NSERC.
Teachers wanting to use MTSE in their classroom to interact with the NAAMES science team should contact Dr. Emily Schaller and reference the “NAAMES EVS-2 Mission”.

Classroom Resources

The GLOBE Program

Visit MND Site
My NASA Data Activities and Lesson Plans Related to NAAMES Science:

NASA Wavelength NAAMES-Specific Resources for Earth and Space Science Education

NASA resources related to the study of ocean ecosystems and how they impact the atmosphere, including

  • Studying Ocean Plankton from Space
  • In-Water Optics and Ocean Color Remote Sensing using littleBits™
  • Carbon Cycle
  • Phytoplankton Blooms and Ocean Warming

Resources are linked to AAAS benchmarks.


Bigelow Laboratory Ocean Biology Education Resources

Scientific background information, multiple lesson plan modules, and links
to additional web content related to three topical areas that are relevant for NAAMES:
1) Phytoplankton, 2) Food Chains or Webs?, 3) From Microscopes to Satellites.
All material is linked to Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning Educational Content Standards.

Teachable Optics: Absorption, Scattering, and the Color of the Ocean by E. Boss
Link to a PDF on the IOCCG website of Dr. Emmanuel Boss’s 2005 Optics and Photonics News paper
discussing a series of easy science classroom exercises about how shining light through glasses
of water mixed with different food colorings affects (through absorption and scattering) the colors that we perceive.
During NAAMES, Dr. Boss and his team use instruments to measure how the optical properties of
the ocean change depending on the water composition (for example, the presence or absence of phytoplankton).

Ocean Optics Web Book
A web-based education and reference book introducing ocean optics topics such as: Light and Radiometry,
Optical Oceanography, Absorption, Scattering, Optical Constituents of the Ocean, Radiative Transfer Theory,
Remote Sensing, Monte Carlo Simulations, and Surfaces. There is also a very extensive reference page with
brief definitions of a variety of ocean and optical science terms.

Marine Data Literacy
A thorough examination of various current in situ ocean data sets as well as mapping and visualization tools.
Included are a large number of analysis methods and exercises.

International Ocean-Colour Coordinating Group (IOCCG)
A group consisting of the ocean color data providers (space agencies) and the international user communities
(scientists, managers) to coordinate and synthesize the global satellite ocean color radiometric records.

IOCCG Lecture Notes
Powerpoint slides and lecture notes from a number of years of IOCCG-sponsored Summer Lecture Series
and Short Courses focused on a variety of ocean color topics.

+ Visit the Multimedia page for recent news articles and features that provide an introductory-level description of the NAAMES project.