There are many ways to celebrate Earth Day 2017, from planting a tree to marching for science, but few top NASA’s Adopt a Planet Day for an out-of-this-world activity.

The space agency invites people from around the globe to virtually “adopt” one of 64,000 individual pieces of Earth as seen from space. The space agency continually looks outward to discover and learn about planets in our solar system and beyond, but none is better studied than the one we actually live on. NASA has a  fleet of 18 Earth science missions in space, supported by aircraft, ships, and ground observations, that measure aspects of the environment that touch the lives of every person around the world.

Adopt a Planet participants will receive personalized adoption certificates featuring data from NASA’s Earth-observing satellites for a randomly assigned location that can be printed and shared.

Meanwhile, anyone can explore other locations with NASA’s interactive map and get even more Earth science data from NASA’s Worldview website.

Filed under: K-12 Outreach Programs, Special Features, Web Resources

Tags: Adopt a Planet, Aerospace, Climate, Earth Day 2017, Earth Science, Environmental Engineering, Environmental science, Events, Internet Resources, maps, NASA, Resources for Teachers, Satellite imagery, Web Resources