Amazing Albedo
Activity - Outdoors
Grades6, 7, 8, 9, 10Physics, Earth and Space Sciences, Mathematics
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Provided by American Museum of Natural History
What it is
- This simple, hands-on experiment demonstrates the powerful effect of albedo. Students will learn how albedo affects regional and global temperatures through the reflection and absorption of light energy.
- Students will hypothesize what will happen, run the experiment, collect the data, and analyze their results.
Teaching tips
Positives
- The worksheet includes a place for students to illustrate their conclusions about solar radiation and albedo.
Additional Prerequisites
- Each group will need 2 thermometers, black construction paper, white paper, scissors, a stapler, a heat lamp or sunlight, graph paper, and a stopwatch or timer.
- Teachers may want to remind students to be careful with the heat lamps, which can get very hot.
- Students should have a journal or notebook for responding to prompts.
Differentiation
- Science classes can use this experiment in a lesson about the electromagnetic spectrum or the properties of light and heat.
- Students can have different jobs in their groups. The worksheet suggests that each group should have a captain and a note-taker.
- After the experiment, teachers can show this video on the feedback loop that occurs when higher global temperatures cause ocean waters to warm and melt the ice. Then have students think about how to increase albedo in locations around the world as a climate solution.
- As an extension, consider using this TED-Ed video on how the loss of albedo in the Arctic will cause global climate problems and this NASA experiment about how different colors absorb different wavelengths of light.
From the scientist review
Albedo is an important mechanism for reflecting solar radiation. The resource is suitable, as students will learn the techniques of measuring temperature from different surfaces, testing their assumptions, and plotting the results. This is recommended for teaching.
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