NASA eClips™ Videos
Our World: Where Do Crops Grow?
Learn how Dr. Catherine Nakalembe uses NASA satellite data to show the health and location of crops around Our World.
Our World: Plants in Space
Find out how plants use light to make their own food in a process called photosynthesis. See how NASA uses LED lights to help grow plants in space. Design your own plant growth chamber like the ones used by NASA.
Our World: Systems to Grow Plants in Space
Find out how plants use light to make their own food. No matter where plants grow, they have the same basic needs: water, nutrients, light, temperature, and atmosphere. This video shows how NASA scientists and engineers work together to learn more about ways plants live, grow, and adapt to live in varying environments.
Real World: Food Security - Monitoring Crops From Space
Discover how NASA's Earth-observing satellites gather data to monitor food growth. The work through NASA Harvest provides tools for farmers and governments to describe and predict food security worldwide.
Our World: What Is Soil?
Learn about soil and how different kinds of soil hold moisture. See how NASA plans to use measurements from the Soil Moisture Active Passive Mission, or SMAP, to make Our World a better place to live.
Real World: What Is Soil Moisture?
See how NASA measures soil moisture from space with the Soil Moisture Active Passive Mission, or SMAP. Learn to calculate soil moisture in your own backyard and discover the real world applications for this data.
Our World: Honeybees
Join NASA scientists and beekeepers in a citizen science project to collect important data about climate change. Learn how honeybees pollinate over 130 crops in the United States each year and what NASA is doing to help study the decline in bee populations.
Ask SME Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert Career Connection Videos
Program Director - Dr. Inbal Becker-Reshef
In this close-up video, Dr. Inbal Becker-Reshef, Program Director for NASA Harvest, describes her journey and how her travels as a child helped her choose a career in science over her passion for art. She shares how cameras on satellites provide data to help farmers and agricultural leaders grow more food and work toward food security worldwide..
Expert U.S. Domestic Co-Lead & AI Lead - Dr. Hannah Kerner
In this close-up video, Dr. Hannah Kerner, Artificial Intelligence Lead at NASA Harvest, shares her experiences in writing code and developing machine learning algorithms that enable NASA satellites to monitor where food is being grown. She describes how her hobbies of hiking, scuba diving, and volunteering intersect with her work.
Remote Sensing Scientist - Dr. Catherine Nakalembe
In this close-up video, Dr. Catherine Nakalembe, Remote Sensing Scientist for NASA Harvest, shares her passion for helping farmers around the world through the use of NASA satellites to monitor crops from space to increase sustainability. She also describes how her love for hiking, photography, and travel supports her work.
Technical & Horticultural Scientist - Jacob Torres
In this close-up video, Jacob Torres, Technical and Horticultural Scientist at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, shares how space biology brings together his love of engineering and growing plants. For his work, he builds technology that supports growing crops in ways that have never been done before.
NASA eClips Educator Guides
Our World: Dirt Educator Guide
Students use charts to organize their knowledge of Earth’s soil and moon dirt. Working in teams, students create several slides of Earth soil for analysis.
Real World: The Light Plants Need Educator Guide
Students observe and compare three types of light sources before experimenting to determine how different colored light affects plant growth. Finally, students design a plant growth chamber to observe the effects of colored plastic, filtered light on plant growth.
NASA Spotlite Videos
Student-produced videos confronting misconceptions.
Misconception: Plants Are AliveStudent producers from Arlington Public Schools confront the misconception that plants are not living.
Misconception: Plants Adapt in Winter
Student producers from Hampton City Schools address the misconception that all plants die in the winter.
NASA Spotlite Design Challenge
Design Challenge
Teams are challenged to produce a video to improve scientific literacy. The goal of the video is to engage other students in doing activities that can help change their misconceptions about a topic in science.
Can Plants Dance?
Join the NASA Spotlite Production Team!
Help others correct misconceptions about the color of Mars.
Partner and Other Resources
See what effect moisture has on a bean’s ability to grow into a plant.
Read this online article to learn the role trees play in studying weather over time.
Online Interactives
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The Fairchild Challenge
Learn about this interdisciplinary, environmental science competition designed to engage students of diverse interests, abilities, talents and backgrounds to explore the natural world.
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GLOBE Observer Trees
Use this app-based tool that will help you estimate tree height. Tracking how trees are changing over time can help NASA estimate the number of trees that make up an area.
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ClimateKids
NASA has several missions studying plants from space. Use this link to learn about them.
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To Plant or Not to Plant?
Identify if each plant specimen planted in the best possible biome.
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Virtual Science Teacher: Photosynthesis
This interactive lesson explores the process of photosynthesis.
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Tiny Tap: Parts of a Plan
This interactive guides younger learners through the parts and functions of plants.
Background Information
- Growing Plants in Space (Article)
- Measuring Vegetation (Article)
- Ways the International Space Station Helps Us Study Plant Growth in Space (Article)
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Vegetation (Interactive)
Use this interactive to see satellite data measuring the greenness of vegetation worldwide. - Plants in Space (Podcast)
Recent tweets from NASA eClips
