Earth and Space Grades 6 to 8

Free online Earth and space science course · 12 weeks

Grade: Grades 6 to 8
Ages: Ages 11 to 14
Price: Free
Format: Self-paced online course at learn.lanternlearn.com

About this course

Earth and Space Grades 6 to 8 is a free 12-week online Earth and space science course for middle schoolers that uses only things a family already has. Students set up a Sky Deck at home and model day and night, Moon phases, eclipses and seasons with a lamp and a ball, roll a marble to see gravity hold the solar system, model the disk it formed from, walk planet distances and cut planet sizes to scale from NASA data, sort rocks by how they formed, settle sand and soil into layers to read Earth's history, and unroll a 4.6-billion-year timeline. The course ends with a solar-system model the student designs, builds, measures and improves.

Skills covered

· Use a lamp-and-ball model to explain day and night, the phases of the Moon and solar and lunar eclipses
· Explain the seasons from the tilt of Earth's axis and the changing intensity of sunlight, not from distance
· Describe the solar system as the Sun and the objects its gravity holds in orbit, and how it formed from a disk of dust and gas
· Read NASA data tables to compare the distances, sizes and properties of the planets and build scale models from them
· Describe how rocks change from one type to another and how rock layers and fossils give relative dates for Earth's history
· Place Earth's 4.6-billion-year history on a scale timeline, and design a solar system model from criteria and constraints
· NGSS: MS-ESS1-1, MS-ESS1-2, MS-ESS1-3, MS-ESS1-4, MS-ESS2-1, MS-ETS1-1

12-week list

Each week has short lessons Monday to Friday, a hands-on Sky Deck Lab, and a Sky Night with the family on Saturday.

Week	Topic	Focus	NGSS
1	Day and Night	A spinning ball beside a lamp, and where the Sun sets	MS-ESS1-1
2	Moon Phases	A small ball on a pencil makes every phase	MS-ESS1-1
3	Eclipses	Whose shadow falls on whom, and why not every month	MS-ESS1-1
4	Seasons	A slanted flashlight spreads the same light thinner	MS-ESS1-1
5	Gravity Holds the System	A marble circling a bowl and the Moon falling around Earth	MS-ESS1-2
6	A Disk of Dust and Gas	Why the planets all go the same way	MS-ESS1-2
7	How Far: Distances	Planet distances walked out in the hallway	MS-ESS1-3
8	How Big: Sizes and Properties	Planet sizes cut from paper using NASA data	MS-ESS1-3
9	Rocks Change	A rock walk and the rock cycle	MS-ESS2-1
10	Reading the Layers	Sand and soil settle in order, oldest at the bottom	MS-ESS1-4
11	Earth's Long Story	A 4.6-billion-year timeline unrolled down the hall	MS-ESS1-4
12	Design a Solar System Model	Build, measure and improve a scale model for the family	MS-ETS1-1

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