The teacher companion to Earth Science A — Earth in Space, Deep Time and a Restless Crust (California), the first semester of a full-year laboratory Earth science course for grade 9, built on the CA NGSS performance expectations HS-ESS1-1 to HS-ESS1-6, HS-ESS2-1, HS-ESS2-2, HS-ESS2-3, HS-ESS2-5 and HS-ESS2-7, with the RST.9-10 literacy standards throughout. For many students it is their first high-school laboratory science.
Module 1 covers the semester as a whole: the UC A-G area D case and phenomenon-driven teaching; lab safety and management for stream tables, sand, vinegar and chalk, hot and cold water and heavy rock kits; teaching earthquakes and landslides with care for students who have lived through them; and real-time data, pacing, tools and access. Modules 2-5 take one student unit each: a briefing on what students produce and the misconceptions that arrive every year, a facilitation lesson for the investigation lab, the argumentation lab and the modeling workshop, and a scoring lesson with synthetic student work at three bands, the realistic errors it contains and the one piece of feedback that moves each.
Every number in the exemplars was recomputed from the same data the student lessons use: the USGS earthquake counts for 2000-2024, the Wallace Creek offset, NASA planetary data and the radiometric half-lives in Unit 2.
Curriculum
- 5 Sections
- 16 Lessons
- Lifetime
- Module 1: Teaching Earth Science A4
- Module 2: Unit 1 — The Sun, the Stars and the Universe3
- Module 3: Unit 2 — Deep Time: Earth’s Formation and the Age of Rocks3
- Module 4: Unit 3 — Plate Tectonics and the San Andreas System3
- Module 5: Unit 4 — Rocks, Water and a Changing Surface3
Instructor
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