Advanced Science 3: Earth Space Systems

This course is required for the magnet program and is taken during one’s sophomore year.  Earth Space Systems is a course that deals with the study of Earth as a system of interacting parts. In this course, you will learn about the Earth-Space System, and be able to understand how the seasons and weather come about. In the second semester, you will study the Solid Earth System, and understand rocks and minerals.

Students study the same topics and instructional objectives as in the MCPS Earth Science A and B curriculum. Additionally, students study the interpretation of data from remote sensing instruments, computer and mathematical concepts that are related to science and engineering, and current research into the interactive process of earth evolution and global change. Emphasis is placed on the dynamic interaction of the solid earth, its atmosphere, and its oceans as special cases of more general processes occur.

Advanced Science 3: Earth Space Systems Unit Outline

Unit 1: Earth-Sun-Moon Relationships

• Seasons, how and why they occur

• Eclipses

• How sizes of each were determined long ago

Unit 2: Fission and Fusion

• Radiometric Dating

• Nuclear Reactors

• Star Formation and the origins of the solar system

Unit 3: Electrons in the Atom

• The electromagnetic spectrum

• Bohr’s model of the atom

• Quantum numbers and how electrons are stored in an atom

Unit 4: Molecular geometry

• Lewis Structures

• VSEPR theory

Unit 5: Rocks and minerals

• Crystal families

• Classification systems of rocks

Unit 6: Earthquakes

• How earthquakes are measured

• Divisions of the Earth

Unit 7: Plate tectonics

• Continental Drift

• How scientific theories evolve

• Theory of plate tectonics and its evidence

Unit 8: Volcanoes