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High School Curriculum

High school is a very different world for students and for educators. Teachers must find a path that bridges the material that was taught in middle school with what their students will need to know for life beyond high school. More Info

EDC Earth Science

EDC Earth Science

EDC Earth Science involves students by challenging them with provocative investigations and questions. This research-based curriculum has been designed in the belief that students are capable of rigorous and in-depth explorations in science when given adequate support, structure, and motivation for learning.

EDC Earth Science is a full-year, activity-driven high school earth science course aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and developed with support from the National Science Foundation.

View a Sample EDC Earth Science Student Book Selection or Sample Teacher Edition Selection.

For custom orders and state standards correlations, contact your state's Science Curriculum Sales Consultant.


Content in EDC Earth Science is organized into 6 units, as follows:

Unit Title CORE SCIENCE CONTENT Estimated # Of 40 to 50 Minute Class Periods
A. EDC Earth Science Introduction and Unit 1 - Hydrosphere: Water in Earth’s Systems Earth's systems, water cycle, surface water, groundwater, assessing and protecting water supplies, global patterns of ocean circulation; how wind and density differences drive ocean currents; global conveyor belt; El Niño 7-9 weeks
B. EDC Earth Science Unit 2 - Atmosphere and Climate climate and weather; influence of latitude, atmospheric circulation, proximity to ocean, elevation, land features, and prevailing winds on regional climate, energy balance, albedo effect, greenhouse effect, carbon cycle, positive and negative feedback loops; Paleoclimatology, climate proxies, climate change in Earth’s past, Milankovitch cycles, tectonic processes that influence climate, human impact on climate 9-11 weeks
C. EDC Earth Science Unit 3 - Earth’s Place in the Universe Life and death of stars, solar nebular condensation hypothesis, Kepler’s Laws, Earth’s interior structure and composition, internal sources of heat energy, seismic waves, introduction to plate tectonic theory, driving forces of plate movement 5-7 weeks
D. EDC Earth Science Unit 4 - Plate Tectonics Transform-fault boundaries, earthquakes, physical and computer models Subduction zones, volcanoes, formation of igneous rocks, field-measurement technologies for volcano monitoring Seafloor spreading, paleomagnetism, plate tectonics summary, landforms associated with plate boundaries 9-11 weeks
E. EDC Earth Science Unit 5 - The Rock Cycle Erosion and deposition, deltaic processes, formation of sedimentary rock, The nature of rocks and minerals, rock cycle 5-7 weeks
F. EDC Earth Science Unit 6 - Earth Resources The geologic processes by which mineral ores are formed; mineral extraction and processing Fossil fuel formation, petroleum resources andexploration technologies 6-8 weeks

Student Book

Student Book

The student edition includes the activities and readings for each chapter, as well as discussion questions and analyses to be completed by students. This book helps students connect their prior understanding to the new material. The book:

  • Presents narrative readings (“the stories”) that highlight Earth Science at play in the world around them, prepare students to study those Earth Science phenomena, and create a need to know.
  • Poses challenges and provides guidance for pursuing those challenges.
  • Presents questions that help students gauge, solidify, and extend their understanding throughout each chapter.
  • Provides science content readings that augment and solidify understanding.
  • Supplies performance and written assessment opportunities.

Periodically, students will construct tables of use “notebook sheets” for note taking. These notebook sheets are designed to scaffold students’ extended exploration of concepts within each chapter.

Teacher's Edition

Teacher's Edition

The teacher edition, available in print and through our Teacher Portal is your starting point for EDC Earth Science and your daily road map for instruction. Please use the teacher edition as you plan for and teach the curriculum. All the essentials of your lesson plans are available in each of the chapters:

  • Step-by-step information about the teaching sequence and ways to facilitate the
    challenges, the readings, and class discussions.
  • An overview, understanding goals (learning objectives), assessment outcomes
    and strategies, assumptions of students’ prior knowledge and skills, discussion of
    student misconceptions, and suggested homework.
  • A list of materials, advance preparation information, science background, and
    answers to questions in the student edition

Lab-Aids Science Lab Notebook

Lab-Aids Science Lab Notebook

The use of a science journal or notebook is strongly recommended for all science classes. A journal not only models the way scientists work but it helps to develop and reinforce students’ science learning and literacy skills.

The Lab-Aids Science Lab Notebook was designed with “Best Practices” in mind. Each of the 160 LabLog pages, has a 2-column design with GraphAnywhere, which allows data tables and graphs to be drawn in a fraction of the usual time, and plenty of room to record data, notes, and responses to questions. It is also three-hole punched to allow students to store the entire notebook, or individual completed pages, in their binder.

Complete Equipment Package

EDC Earth Science uses over 60 activities to help make the study of earth science come alive! The course specific materials packages provide a vast array of unique and signature items designed specifically for the program. Course Essential packages are available which allows you to buy only the unique items designed for the course. You could also purchase materials by unit if you are teaching only section of the program, or you can purchase items individually for those teachers that have well–equipped lab facilities. Our goal is to provide the necessary material without duplicating what you already have in your classroom, thus maximizing your budget.

Online Teacher Portal

The EDC Earth Science Teacher Portal includes both the Student and Teacher Editions. It also provides a full suite of ancillary teaching resources which are not included in the print Teacher Edition. These include links to real-time data, animations and supplemental information, slide presentations to go with each chapter, item banks, supplemental readings, student notebook sheets, literacy supplements such as anticipation guides to go with each reading.

Books Online

Books Online

Individual, classroom or district licenses can be purchased for access to our student books on-line or downloaded for your laptop, tablet or mobile device. It features editable Word documents for each set of Activity Assessment Questions which allows students to e-mail their finished work back to the teacher. Microsoft Word Tools provide strong support for diverse learners. The Spelling and Grammar Checker uses red and green underline squiggles representing spelling (red) and grammar (green) errors alerting students to potential errors. The thesaurus helps to refine writing as well as expose students to new vocabulary words. Students with poor spelling skills often have difficulty using a dictionary. This feature provides an instant definition for a highlighted word, eliminating the task of dictionary lookup. Students can also use the Thesaurus to find the synonyms of words. All pages were created using Adobe Acrobat Reader. A great feature of the Adobe program is “The Read Aloud Function”. The program audibly reads the text, allowing the student to follow the reading on the page. You can speed up or slow down the program based on the student’s ability. This helps all students increase their vocabulary.