Use satellite imagery to explore the Antarctic ozone hole. Is it increasing or decreasing? What causes this effect? Can we do anything about it? Download and display satellite imagery of stratospheric ozone. Measure the area of the thinning ozone using computer image processing tools. Graph the changes over a period of years. Extend your analysis to investigate ozone in other geographic areas and the relationship between ozone and other environmental factors.
Includes revised standards and two data sets for comparison: 1979-1992 showing increasing area of ozone "hole" and 2004-2017 showing a decrease.
| Relevant Disciplines: | All |
| Grade Level: | 5-12 |
| Adaptable to Other Grades: | No |
| Time Required (class periods): | 1-3 |
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Additional Resources Available: | Yes |
Next Generation Science Standards addressed in this lesson:
5-ESS2-1
MS-ESS3-3
HS-ESS3-5
| Lesson Resources for Analyzing the Antarctic Ozone Hole | |
| File Type/Link | Description |
| Images (png)-zip | TOMSPics.zip - Collection of 14 TOMS (Nimbus-7) images, 1979-1992 for lesson tutorial, 640x480 and 19-20KB each; zipped 136KB total |
| Images (png)-zip | OMIPics.zip - Collection of 14 OMI (Aura) Images, 2004-2017 for required Your Turn activity, 640x480 and 15-19KB each; zipped 243KB total |
| Images (tif)-zip | TOMSEPPics.zip - Collection of 10 TOMS (Earth Probe) images for optional Your Turn activity, 1280x960 and 57-63KB each; zipped 597KB total |
| Images (png)-zip | OMPSPics.zip - Collection of 9 OMPS (Suomi NPP/NOAA-20) images, 2012-2020, 850x850 and 169-176KB each; zipped 1.5MB total |