What do you want to know and do?

Choose one of the Next Generation Science Standards Core Ideas below that interests you. Decide what you want to know about it and plan what you would like to do to find out more about this topic.

Develop your own Success Criteria for this short-term project and get to work!

Will you...

• do a research project?
• conduct an experiment to answer a question?
• create a demonstration to show a concept?
• do something else?

How will you demonstrate your understanding?

Earth’s Place in the Universe

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs)

ESS1.A: The Universe and Its Stars

• Earth and its solar system are part of the Milky Way galaxy, which is one of many galaxies in the universe.
• Patterns of the apparent motion of the sun, the moon, and stars in the sky can be observed, described, predicted, and explained with models.
• This model of the solar system can explain eclipses of the sun and the moon. Earth’s spin axis is fixed in direction over the short-term but tilted relative to its orbit around the sun. The seasons are a result of that tilt and are caused by the differential intensity of sunlight on different areas of Earth across the year.

ESS1.B: Earth and the Solar System

• The solar system consists of the sun and a collection of objects, including planets, their moons, and asteroids that are held in orbit around the sun by its gravitational pull on them.
• The solar system appears to have formed from a disk of dust and gas, drawn together by gravity.
• The geologic time scale interpreted from rock strata provides a way to organize Earth’s history. Analyses of rock strata and the fossil record provide only relative dates, not an absolute scale.