Master Earth Science from first principles
Astronomy, meteorology, minerals and rocks, plate tectonics, and Earth's surface processes. Aligned to the NYS Physical Setting/Earth Science Regents standards.
Earth Science — Essential Concepts
Astronomy, mapping, weather, minerals and rocks, plate tectonics, and surface processes — every Earth Science Regents essential on one page.
Measuring Earth: Maps, Coordinates & Topographic Profiles
Latitude and longitude, contour lines, gradient, and how to read a topographic map and build an elevation profile.
Earth's Motions: Rotation, Revolution & the Seasons
Why we have day and night, why seasons happen (the tilt, not distance), and the evidence that Earth rotates and revolves.
The Solar System & the Universe
Orbits and eccentricity, moon phases and eclipses, tides, and the evidence for an expanding universe.
Minerals: Properties & Identification
What makes something a mineral, and how to identify one using hardness, cleavage, luster, streak, and other physical properties.
Rocks & the Rock Cycle
The three rock families — igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic — how to tell them apart, and how the rock cycle recycles them.
Plate Tectonics & Earth's Interior
Earth's layered interior, the three types of plate boundary, mantle convection, and the evidence that the continents move.
Earthquakes & Volcanoes
Focus vs epicenter, P-waves and S-waves, locating an earthquake, and the three volcano types.
Weathering, Erosion & Deposition
How rock breaks down, how it's carried away and sorted, and the landscapes glaciers, rivers, and wind leave behind.
Meteorology: Weather & Station Models
Air pressure and wind, reading station models and isobars, fronts and air masses, and what makes weather stormy or clear.
Insolation, the Water Cycle, Climate & Geologic History
Solar energy and the water cycle, the factors that control climate and the greenhouse effect, and how geologists read the age of rock layers.