Link list on the Sun as energy source and its relevance for the Earth

 
Basic information on the sun
 

The SOHO project invites you to explore the Sun and gives very basic as well as more detailed information.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/explore/
Material is also provided for teaching about the Sun to different age groups:
http://nasaexplores.nasa.gov/
show2_articlea.php?id=05-102
 

Visualisation of the Sun’s impact

The Sun transfers energy to our planet Earth and heats it. Animations of temperature distributions on land and sea can help to visualise which regions of the Earth receive more or less energy:
http://homepages.ge.ucl.ac.uk/
~awayne/polar/climate.html
 

Inclination of the Earth's axis and seasons
 

Many websites illustrate the Earth's orbit and how seasons are caused by Earth's tilted axis. You will find good explanations and illustrations on the following pages:
http://www.astronomy.org/programs/seasons/index.html
Length of days at different latitudes:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/tropical/
lecture_02/lec_02.html
The seasons explained in a very nice video
http://www.videojug.com/film/
why-does-the-earth-have-seasons
 

Solar radiation and solar constant

Basics about solar radiation are explained on common pages like the one of Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_radiation
 

But the real energy transferred varies as for example illustrated on the following HelioClim page:
http://www.helioclim.org/education/
eng_climato_saison.php
 

The variability of the solar constant is too complex a topic to be taught in classes. If you would like to read more than explained here in the background article, you will find a good summary of investigation methods in the following paper (Attention: PDF document - loading time):
http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/publications/
fulltext/Beer_et_al._SSR2006.pdf 
 

If students are interested in interactions between Sun and Earth other than light, the following NASA / Themis page can give an introduction:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/
themis/auroras/sun_earth_connect.html
 

Energy distribution and radiation budget
 

The following very simple but very efficient introduction page from climatepredicition.net explains, what happens to the Sun’s energy on the Earth, how it is distributed by winds and by the oceans:
http://www.climateprediction.net/
science/cl-intro.php
This page from Earth Science Research has a stronger emphasis on the role of the oceans:
http://www.esr.org/outreach/climate_change/
basics/basics2.html
 

Numerous pages describe the Earth's radiation budget related to the greenhouse effect, but some also make the link to the solar energy and its distribution, like the following ESPERE page:
http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/29b.html
or this page from NASA:
http://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/
Radiation_Explanation.html