This course is intended as a choice for the 3rd or 4th year of high school science, and incorporates many of the physical science standards as well as the Earth and Space Standards. This course is adapted from the California Four Course Domain Specific Model in the CA Framework.

High school students integrate knowledge from physics, chemistry, and biology to understand the mechanisms by which Earth systems interact (e.g., combustion, photosynthesis, and respiration for the carbon cycle; nuclear processes for radiometric dating and stellar fusion; electromagnetic radiation for stellar spectra; gravity for orbital motion). High school also blurs the line between cause and effect as students investigate feedback mechanisms in climate, erosion, and star life cycles. Students have been expanding the scale of their investigations continuously since kindergarten, and high school students are ready to contemplate and quantify deep timescales by focusing on the age of crustal rocks and the origin of the universe itself.

The Earth and Space Sciences course is divided into eight instructional segments that follow a storyline framed around climate change. The course begins with the origin of fossil fuels in IS1 (Energy and Matter Cycling in the Earth System) to set up the exploration of climate and global warming in IS2 (Climate). Students consider the impact of climate change as they investigate different Earth system interactions in IS3 (Mountains, Valleys, and Coasts), IS4 (Water and Farming), and IS6 (Urban Geosciences). Students drill down into the solid Earth in IS5 (Causes and Effects of Earthquakes) and turn their eyes skyward in IS7 (Star Stuff) and IS8 (Motion in the Universe).