NOAA Resources for Students

Whether you're in kindergarten or graduate school, NOAA offers opportunities, programs, and internships for students of all ages.

The links below will guide you through the programs available. Also included are links to cool pictures and other fun and games for space enthusiasts.

K-12 | Scholarships & Internships | Amazing Images | Fun and Games |

K-12 resources:

Adopt A Buoy Activity Book
There are two pages to color on this site and the site focuses on the activities of the data buoys that provide information about the oceans surrounding the United States and its territories.

Become a FEMA Disaster Action Kid
Disaster Action Kids are prepared! They know what items are needed in a disaster supply kit. They know how to protect their pets during a disaster. They also know what to do during each type of disaster.

Climate Change Kid's Site
EPA has developed a great page for kids to help them understand climate and weather, global warming and the greenhouse effect.

Estuaries - Where Rivers Meet the Sea
This is an interagency Web site intended to provide students, educators and the general public with information on a variety of estuarine issues. It also provides information on National Estuaries Day activities, such as Estuary Live and local National Estuarine Research Reserve and National Estuary Program events.

Flash Riprock and the Bolt from the Blue
This is a lightning safety poster in PDF format that can be downloaded. It also lists lightning myths that need to be dispelled.

Frequently Asked Questions about Global Warming
This site can answer many questions about global warming, including: Are greenhouse gases increasing? Are El Niños related to Global Warming? Is sea level rising?

Geostationary Satellites
This web page helps you learn about the GOES Satellite System. You can learn basic information to get an overview of the interaction between spacecraft and the ground systems used to collect, process, and retransmit data to users in various formats. You can also find a detailed description of the GOES instrumentation, particularly the Imager, Sounder, and Space Environmental Monitor, aboard the spacecraft. Space topics include solar flares, coronal holes, and solar winds.

Hurricane and Natural Disasters Information, NOAA Miami Library
Learn all about hurricanes, tornadoes, lightening, floods, hail, thunderstorms and extreme heat. You'll also find safety and preparedness information, statistics and answers to common questions.

Kid's Climate Site
This site from NOAA's Climate Diagnostic Center provides a wide range of links to educational sites and to the office of each State Climatologists.

Kid's Hazard Quiz
Natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes affect both coastal and inland areas. You can select your quiz subject from thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, winter storms, tsunamis, volcanoes, landslides, and wildfires. You can also set up a family disaster plan from this web site.

Migration Concentration
A good way to learn about animals is to track them from space. Scientists pick individual animals and fit them with lightweight, comfortable radio transmitters. Signals from the transmitters are received by special instruments on NOAA satellites as they pass overhead. Tracking migrating animals using satellites may help us figure out how to make their journeys as safe as possible and help them survive.

Night of a Thousand Trains
This is a tornado safety poster in PDF format that can be downloaded. It also lists tornado myths.

NOAA-N Information
NOAA satellites are launched by NASA and maintained by NOAA after they are in place. Information about one of NOAA’s satellites, NOAA-N, is available on this site. NOAA-N collects information about Earth's atmosphere and environment to improve weather prediction and climate research across the globe.

Office of Response and Restoration
This site for students helps teach about how NOAA and other agencies respond to oil spills and hazardous chemical accidents. It also contains some experiments.

Play Time for Kids
This website has been designed to help kids learn hurricanes, winter storms, thunderstorms, and other hazardous weather. If you check out the category called "Other Fun Stuff" you can find interesting activities.

Science with NOAA Research
This webpage provides middle school science students with research and investigation experiences using on-line resources. Even if you do not have much experience using web-based activities in science, the directions here are easy to follow. Climate topics include El Niño, tornadoes, lightning, and hurricanes.

SciJinks Weather Laboratory
This exciting website is a joint NOAA/NASA site that helps students learn more about the weather while having fun.

Tsunami for Kids
The National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program works to reduce the impact of tsunamis. "Tsunami, the Great Waves" is a site for kids to learn about tsunamis, the long ocean waves which are frequently caused by underwater volcanoes.

Viewing Protected Marine Species in the Wild
This webpage helps the public understand its responsibilities to marine mammals in the wild. The National Marine Fisheries Service is responsible for managing and protecting whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea lions, and it has regulations prohibiting feeding these marine mammals in the wild.

VORTEX: Unraveling the Secrets - A Storybook
This project, Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment, helps teachers and students understand facts about tornadoes and shows how the scientific method of making observations, collecting data, and developing and testing hypotheses to reach an informed conclusion is used.

Watch Out...Storms Ahead
Owlie Skywarn's Weather Book. This new version of the favorite Owlie Skywarn book is in a very large PDF file. To find the full coloring book, click here.  To find the separate chapters on Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Lightning, Floods, and Winter Storms, click the chapter name you want. The book also contains Weather Quizzes for kids.

Web Weather For Kids
Learn all about thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, lightening, blizzards and clouds! You'll also find fun games and activities, stories and safety information. You can even learn how to forecast the weather!

Scholarships & Internships:

Career Opportunities
Information about employment opportunities, including Student Employment Opportunities, as well as Federal agency-wide vacancies, through the Office of Personnel Management’s USA Jobs.

Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship Program
Designed to prepare students for public service careers in oceanic and atmospheric science, research, technology, and education and foster multidisciplinary training opportunities and to recruit and prepare students for careers as teachers and educators in oceanic and atmospheric science.

Jobs, Careers, and Recruitments
Information for undergraduate and graduate students. Students can check out NOAA and federal vacancies; internship, fellowship, grant and scholarship opportunities; general career resources; and opportunities for minorities.

Marine Careers
The site includes overviews of the fields of marine biology, oceanography, and ocean engineering; a look at what the future is likely to hold for careers in these fields; links to a wide range of additional resources; information on salaries in various marine science fields; and other great stuff. This site is a project of the National Sea Grant College Program and is based on the publication Marine Science Careers: A Sea Grant Guide to Ocean Opportunities.

Marine Education Links
Another page on this web site has Marine Education links in categories: aquariums, oceans, whales, and environmental groups. This link is useful for getting to non-governmental partners of NOAA.

National Sea Grant Program
This excellent site provides information about the National Sea Grant Program, whose mission is to encourage the wise stewardship of our marine resources through research, education, outreach, and technology transfer. There is general information about the program itself, as well as research, fellowship and other opportunities. These other opportunities include employment prospects and web sites involving environmental and ocean careers.

National Weather Association Annual Awards Program
This program includes the Arthur C. Pike Scholarship in Meteorology as well as other opportunities for students and meteorology teachers to earn financial support.

NOAA fellowship, internships, grants and scholarships
a long list of opportunities for students.

NOAA fisheries internship
Office of Law Enforcement internship in Silver Spring MD.

SeaGrant Fellowship program
A program established for students with who have an interest in ocean, costal, and Great Lakes resources and in the national policy decisions affecting those resources.

Society for Marine Mammalogy: Strategies for Pursuing a Career in Marine Mammal Science
This site provides a great deal of information that answers students' questions about pursuing careers in marine mammal science. The topics covered answer questions about the types of jobs and salaries available, finding schools for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as finding grants, scholarships, internships, and training information.

Student Research Participation Program
Opportunities for students to participate in research and development related to science, math and engineering.

Student Resources from the American Meteorological Society
The American Meteorological Society's home page allows you to navigate through their web site in search of a variety of student opportunities. Check out Educational Initiatives, Scholarships/Fellowships, and Student Resources for information about high school, undergraduate, and graduate opportunities.

Amazing Images:

Earth as Art
Here you can view your home planet throughbeautiful images taken by NASA satellites.

The Geostationary Satellite Server
This site provides satellite imagery of the eastern continental U.S., the western continental U.S., Puerto Rico, Alaska, and Hawaii. You can also access sea surface temperatures from this site as well as tropical Atlantic and Pacific information. This tropical information is particularly interesting during hurricane season.

Natiobal Weather Service Photo Library
A collection of photos documenting the history of the National Weather Service.

NOAA Photo Library
The NOAA collection spans centuries of time and much of the natural world from the center of the Earth to the surface of the Sun. Due to their broad base of scientific expertise and the geographic range under which NOAA science and observations are conducted, the NOAA collection includes thousands of weather and space images, hundreds of images of our shores and coastal seas, and thousands of marine species images ranging from the great whales to the most minute plankton.

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) Digital Image Library of Weather, Climate, and Earth System Imagery
Browse their extensive collection of photographs and illustrations of clouds, lightning, tornadoes, floods, storms, air pollution, and more.

Fun and Games:

For Younger Kids:

Billy and Maria - Coloring Books for Kids - Weather
These coloring books help kids learn more about weather safety during tornadoes, winter weather and thunderstorms.

Chesapeake Bay Activity Book
This book for young children provides information on the Chesapeake Bay watershed and gives them the opportunity to color, connect the dots, try word searches and make recipes.

Climate Kids weather-related games
A collection of weather-related games; including a puzzle, word search, name game, and a concentration game.

Coastal North Carolina Activity Book
This book for young children provides information on Coastal North Carolina and gives them the opportunity to color, connect the dots, try word searches and even make recipes.

Earth Day Origami Project
The Sun is the source of energy for life on Earth. Put together this origami model of the Sun and learn more about our nearest star.

Habitats of North Pacific Marine Fish
Color in a map of the North Pacific and then add stickers of different fish species based upon information provided on where the fish like to live. The teacher version includes a key showing a correctly completed version. The link provides a downloaded, color printable version of the exercise and "print your own" fish stickers in Adobe Acrobat format.

Kohola and Kolea - The Whale and the Plover
This coloring book is written in both Hawaiian and in English.

Marine Debris Coloring Book
This coloring book helps kids understand how to recognize the hazards of throwing junk into the ocean and overboard from boats.

Mobile Bay Activity Book
This book for young children provides information on Coastal Alabama and gives them the opportunity to color, connect the dots, try word searches and make recipes.

Pacific Coral Reef Coloring Book
This coloring book lets kids see the beauty and value of coral reefs.

Puffy the Puffer Book of Fun Fish Facts
A coloring book for kids that highlights marine trivia, games, mazes, a quiz and more.

Spuzzled for Kids
This site takes NOAA images and offers students the chance to put those images into the correct order while also learning more about the environmental work of the Agency. There is a weather puzzle at this site in three levels of difficulty.

Why is Hawaii's Ocean Important? A Keiki Activity Book
This book for young children provides information on Hawaii and gives them the opportunity to color, connect the dots, try word searches and even make recipes.

Windows to the Universe games (grades K-8)
A large collection of science games, including puzzles, word searches, coloring books, and adlibs.

For Older Kids (and adults):

USDA Aerial Photography Field Office NEW LINK
The Aerial Photography Field Office is the primary source of aerial photography for the USDA. The site contains over 10,000,000 images dating back to 1955.

WorldWind 1.3
World Wind allows any user to zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth, leveraging high resolution LandSat imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) elevation data to experience Earth terrain (or any planet with the data) in visually rich 3D, just as if they were really there.