The course map.
Eight units — four per semester — the labs that anchor them, and the two-day rhythm that runs every week of the year. This is the planner’s view — the whole course on one page.
Two days a week, and the work between them.
Every unit runs on the same rhythm: Concept Day → [student works at home] → Field & Lab Day → [student synthesizes at home] → next Concept Day. One day forces a choice between depth and breadth; two days allow both. More than two crowds out the at-home work where integration actually happens.
Concept Day
- Arrival & warm-up — reconnect with the prior session
- Pre-lecture discussion — surface what the at-home reading raised
- Direct instruction — micro-lectures, worked problems, demonstrations
- Problem set / model work — apply the concept, solo or in pairs
- Misconception sweep & wrap-up — correct common errors, preview the lab
Guide's role: Socratic and diagnostic. Student's role: active participation; pre-reading required.
Field & Lab Day
- Pre-lab briefing — the question, the procedure, the safety
- Safety check — goggles for rock-breaking and the acid test; dilute-acid care; explicit, every time
- Setup — specimens, instruments, maps, partner assignment
- Execution — the lab or field exercise itself; the guide circulates and coaches
- Debrief & lab notebook — completed before the student leaves
- Specimen return & cleanup — to standard; non-negotiable
Guide's role: safety officer first, teacher second. Student's role: the lab notebook is THE artifact — predictions before results.
From the planet's interior to Earth in space.
The sequence is deliberate: each unit assumes the one before it. Click any unit to open its mastery rubric — the standard a student demonstrates against to advance.
| Unit | Big ideas | Anchor lab(s) | Integrates with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 · Earth's Structure & Plate Tectonics | Earth's layers, plate boundaries, seafloor spreading, earthquakes & volcanoes | Earthquake triangulation from seismograms; plate-boundary mapping | Wegener & continental drift (history, reading); geography (Pangaea, mid-ocean ridges); plate-motion-rate math |
| 02 · Minerals & Rocks (the rock cycle) | Mineral properties, the three rock families, the rock cycle | Mineral & rock identification (streak, hardness, luster, acid test) | Steno & the birth of geology (history, writing); crystal geometry; classification logic |
| 03 · Weathering, Erosion & Soil | Physical & chemical weathering, erosion, deposition, soil horizons | Stream-table erosion & deposition | Hutton & deep time (history); soil & the environment; rate-of-erosion math |
| 04 · Earth's History & Geologic Time | Relative & absolute dating, the geologic column, fossils, half-life | Radiometric-dating / half-life simulation | Steno–Hutton–Lyell & deep time (history, reading); radioactive-decay (half-life) math |
| 05 · The Atmosphere & Weather | Atmospheric structure, air masses & fronts, pressure, humidity, storms | Weather-station data & front tracking | The forecasting era (history, technology); reading weather maps; data plotting |
| 06 · Climate & Climate Change | Climate zones, the greenhouse effect, proxies, the carbon cycle | Climate-proxy (ice-core / tree-ring) data analysis | Keeling & the CO₂ record (history, ethics, writing); biology (carbon cycle); trend & anomaly math |
| 07 · The Hydrosphere (oceans & the water cycle) | The water cycle, ocean currents, waves & tides, salinity | Ocean-current & water-cycle modeling | The age of exploration & ocean mapping (history, geography); environment; current & flow math |
| 08 · Astronomy & Earth in Space | The Earth–Moon–Sun system, seasons, moon phases, the solar system, scale | Scale-model solar system; Moon-phase & seasons modeling | Copernicus–Galileo–Kepler (history, reading); orbital geometry; scale & distance math |
Every unit carries the core spokes — History, Reading, and Writing — anchored to the story in the integration guide. The column above names each unit’s distinctive spokes; geography and soft social studies run where they fit, and students pick from elective spokes (data, ethics, economics, technology, art). An applied-math lane runs through every unit too — math used in service of the science, never as a separate program.
Where mastery gets proven in person.
Three times across the year, the student steps up to a demonstration that cannot be faked, outsourced, or generated. These are the AI-proof core of the course — understanding, shown in real time, against a rubric, in front of a guide.
Mineral & rock ID defense
Identify unknown specimens by streak, hardness, luster, cleavage, and the acid test — and defend each call, out loud, under questions.
Timed map interpretation
Read a topographic, geologic, or weather map — or triangulate an earthquake from seismograms — under time pressure, and justify the reading.
Oral lab-notebook defense
Walk a guide through your own notebook: the question, the method, the data, the anomalies, the interpretation.