Resources by European Space Agency (ESA)

The carbon cycle

These resources from the European Space Agency climate change initiative education resource pack allow students to learn about the carbon cycle and the key to controlling climate change by managing it and using it to identify how to reduce carbon emissions to the atmosphere. How carbon moves through the carbon...

The discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole

In this set of activities, pupils will learn about ozone and the impacts – good and bad – it has on life on Earth.

Activities are:

• finding out about ozone and how it is measured and introducing the story of the Antarctic ozone hole
• investigating the effectiveness of sunscreen
• ...

The Eduspace Image Catalogue Viewer

The Eduspace Image Catalogue Viewer offers access to ArcExplorer which is a freeware used to display and analyse layers of Geographical Information Systems (GIS).  ArcExplorer is a geographic data explorer developed by Environmental Systems...

The ESA/ESO Astronomy Exercise Series

The object of this resource, produced by ESA and ESO, is to present various small projects that will pass on some of the excitement and satisfaction in scientific discovery, to students. Using elementary geometrical and physical considerations, students will be able to derive answers that are comparable with the...

The Greenhouse Effect

This short animation film joins the alien, Paxi, as he investigates the greenhouse effect and greenhouse gases and the effect they have on the Earth’s atmosphere. He explores how human activity, such as cars, factories, and food production have increased the amount of carbon dioxide trapped in the...

The greenhouse effect and its consequences - Investigating global warming

This set of activities from the European Space Agency includes hands-on experiments. Students are guided to interpret satellite images to better understand the overall effects of global warming.

In the first activity, students demonstrate to themselves the greenhouse effect. The experiment is complemented by...

The ice is melting

In this set of four activities from the European Space Agency, students explore the impacts of global warming and melting ice on the Earth. They learn the difference between land ice and sea ice, and will investigate the respective effects of these melting. They then design their own experiment to examine how...

The Incredible adventures of the Hera mission

This series of videos introduce NASA's DART spacecraft which was set on a course to collide with an asteroid Dimorphos in October 2022, to create a crater and alter its velocity. 

The series starts with 'Presenting Hera' a video introducing Hera, the asteroid detective, and its adventure to travel to and...

The Ingredients for Life: on Earth and in Space

On the International Space Station many of the Earth’s environmental support systems have already been engineered. Examining how some of these key technologies work, allows us to understand the vital ingredients that make Earth such an ideal place to live. In the video 'Ingredients for Life: On Earth and in Space...

The Little Books of Gaia

Gaia is an ambitious mission to chart a three-dimensional map of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. The spacecraft will provide the positions and velocity measurements of around 1 billion stars – which is about one percent of the stars in our galaxy.