Garden City Public Schools

Students in the accelerated (8A) eighth grade program will take the High School Regents Level Earth Science course. This course approaches the study of Earth Science from a conceptual and empirical point of view. All major aspects of astronomy, geology, and meteorology are studied. The course has alternating lab periods each week (meets 7 or 8 times each week). The Earth Science Regents Examination terminates the course.

Students in accelerated Math and Science classes must maintain an 85 average to remain in these classes. Students whose report card grade falls below 85 for two consecutive quarters will be returned to the regular level class.

The instruction is focused on student understanding and demonstration of important relationships, processes, mechanisms, and applications of concepts. Students, in attaining scientific literacy, will be able to demonstrate these explanations, in their own words, exhibiting creative problem solving, reasoning, and informed decision making. Future assessments will test student’s ability to explain, analyze, and interpret Earth science processes and phenomena, and generate science inquiry. Through this curriculum, students will be able to do the following:

• Students will use mathematical analysis, scientific inquiry, and engineering designs as appropriate, to pose questions, seek answers, and develop solutions.
• Students will access, generate, process, and transfer information, using appropriate technologies.
• Students will understand the relationships and common themes that connect mathematics, science, and technology and apply the themes to these and other areas of learning.
• Students will apply the knowledge and thinking skills of mathematics, science, and technology to address real-life problems and make informed decisions.

Critical to understanding science concepts is the use of scientific inquiry to develop explanations of natural phenomena. Therefore, as a prerequisite for admission to the Regents examination in Physical Setting/Earth Science, students must have successfully completed 1200 minutes of laboratory experience with satisfactory written reports for each laboratory investigation.

1. The Local Environment and Change
2. Measuring the Earth
3. Earth Motions, Lunar Motions, the Solar System
4. The Sun, Stars, and Cosmology
5. The Atmosphere and Energy Transfer
6. Meteorology and Climate
7. The Water Cycle and Ground Water
8. Oceanography
9. Environmental Awareness
10. Weathering Erosion, Glaciations
11. Rocks and Minerals
12. Earth’s Interior, Seismology, and Plate Tectonics
13. Geologic History and the Fossil Record
14. Landscape Development

• 90% Tests and Quizzes
• 10% Labs and Homework

• Physical Setting Review – Earth Science, UPCO
• Explorations in Earth Science – The Physical Setting, UPCO
• Prentice Hall Brief Review - Earth Science: Physical Setting
• Earth Science Reference Tables