Mars Teaches Earth

This can be used as a pacing guide/scope and sequence for high school Earth & Space Science. It includes all of the New York State Science Learning Standards (NYSSLS), but the two extra standards that New York added in can be easily taken out so it can be used in any state for an NGSS curriculum. This is an updated version with several changes after teaching the curriculum for a full school year!All of the standards were broken down into five major units. Each unit includes: An anchoring phen

This activity simplifies the complex Milankovitch Cycles for student understanding! It meets the requirements for the long-term climate change part of HS-ESS 2-4. It requires students to look at animations (models) of the three cycles and describe what they are observing. Students are then required to read about each of the cycles and answer a few questions about each one (reading comprehension practice!). Additionally, students will have to explain how each cycle has an effect on the flow of en

This includes two activities for students to model the process of radioactive decay. Both activities provide a visual for this complicated and hard-to-picture phenomenon. It can be used when teaching either HS-ESS 2-3 or HS-ESS 1-6 or both! There are questions that ask students to use page 15 of the Earth & Space Science Reference Tables (ESSRT) so a PDF of that page is also included or you can choose to take out those questions. We found our students struggle with this topic, so we did two s

This includes two separate activities: one for the water cycle and one for the rock cycle. The activities is the same, just with modified content for each type of cycle. HS-ESS 2-5 requires students to make connections between the hydrologic cycle and the rock cycle so we figured that doing the same style activity for both would help students to start making those connections. This can also be used at the middle school level to teach the rock cycle (MS-ESS 2-1) or water cycle (MS-ESS 2-4). In bo

This activity is intended to introduce students to the Science & Engineering Practice (SEP) of Developing & Using Models. It will help to teach students how to label a model, use and label a zoom-in bubble and create a scale. Additionally, it includes a second example for students to try on their own and add to the existing model. To conclude the lesson, it has a few discussion questions about the importance of using models in science.

This lab meets HS-ESS 1-5 as it has students evaluate evidence and identify patterns of the age of Earth's oceanic crust. It requires students to plot data and analyze where the youngest crust is found and analyze the patterns of magnetic reversal found on the ocean floor. Students are also prompted to analyze a map of ages of the ocean crust in several locations and page 12 of the New York State Earth & Space Science Reference Tables (ESSRT) as evidence for where the youngest crust is found. A

This template can be used for any CER, just plug in your guiding question! It helps students organize their thoughts and clearly write out each part. For easy, quick grading, there is a rubric right below each section as well as for the student's writing quality. These are great as a conclusion to a lab or to wrap up a lesson.

This is a great way to organize your lesson plans for each period of the day. Each class/section is color coded next to the period in which it is taught. Easily duplicate the tab for each week of the school year!