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What Makes Cities Hot?

Provided by: My NASA Data |Published on: April 14, 2026

Lesson Plans

345

Synopsis

In this hands-on experiment, students learn why different materials experience differences in surface temperatures by comparing how materials such as pavement, buildings, and vegetation absorb heat and contribute to the urban heat island effect.
Students will learn how to conduct a science experiment, make observations, and draw conclusions from those observations.

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Subjects: Science

Authors: My NASA Data

Region: Global

Languages: English

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Teaching Materials

Positives

Students will enjoy going outside to take data.
The student worksheets are simple and clearly outline what students should do.

Prerequisites

Teachers will need to prepare and gather materials ahead of time, including thermometers, colored construction paper, aluminum foil, sand, sponges, clipboards, and printed data sheets and data tables for students.
Teachers should plan to do this activity on a warm, sunny day, though the resource does give suggestions for implementation on other days.

Differentiation & Implementation

After discussing the urban heat island effect, students can use what they learned about how different materials heat up to design a solution that would cool down urban areas.
Teachers can make connections to climate change and how rising temperatures will make cities even hotter. Teachers can transition into a conversation about the importance of mitigating climate change as much as possible.
To support writing skills, teachers can have students use their worksheets to turn their raw claim, evidence, and reasoning into a polished short paragraph.
This video can help drive home some of the points discussed and discovered in the activity.

Scientist Notes

Teaching Tips

Standards

Resource Type and Format

About the Partner Provider

My NASA Data

NASA offers petabytes of global Earth science data collected from satellites, but accessing these data in a traditional (or virtual) science classroom can be tricky. Since 2004, My NASA Data has supported students and teachers of grades 3-12 in analyzing and interpreting NASA mission data.

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All resources can be used for your educational purposes with proper attribution to the content provider.

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What Makes Cities Hot?

Synopsis

Teaching Materials

About the Partner Provider

Related Teaching Resources