Earth Science 11

Unit 1: Earth Materials & the Rock Cycle

What Earth is made of and how it constantly remakes itself: minerals, the three rock families, the surface and internal processes that cycle rock from one form to another, and the economic and environmental stakes of the geologic resources this cycle produces.

• Minerals and their identification
• Igneous rocks
• Sedimentary rocks
• Metamorphic rocks
• Geologic resources

• Surface and internal processes of the rock cycle

• Economic and environmental implications of geologic resources

Unit 2: Plate Tectonics

The evidence that built plate tectonic theory, the forces that drive the plates, and the First Peoples oral histories that record real tectonic events across generations in what is now British Columbia.

• Evidence for plate tectonic theory

• Factors that affect plate motion

• First Peoples knowledge of plate tectonic settings

Unit 3: The Atmosphere, Weather & Climate

How water, air, and energy interact to produce the hydrologic cycle and day-to-day weather, how the atmosphere's composition has changed over time, how incoming solar radiation sets Earth's energy budget, and the historical and recent evidence of climate change — including First Peoples knowledge of climate change and interconnectedness.

• The hydrologic cycle

• Changes in the composition of the atmosphere

• Weather as the interaction of water, air, and energy transfer

• Extreme weather, air currents and El Niño/La Niña

• Solar radiation interactions and the energy budget

• Evidence of climate change

• First Peoples knowledge of climate change

Unit 4: Water & the Oceans

Water as a unique and irreplaceable resource, First Peoples knowledge and perspectives of water resources and processes, the properties of the ocean and ocean floor, the currents that move ocean water around the globe, how large bodies of water shape climate, and how climate change is already reshaping our water sources.

• Water as a unique resource

• First Peoples knowledge of water resources

• Properties of the ocean and the ocean floor

• Local and global ocean currents

• Influence of large bodies of water on local and global climates

• Effects of climate change on water sources

Unit 5: Earth & Its Solar System

How the solar system formed, what makes Earth uniquely able to support life, how stars are classified and change over their life cycle, the impacts of the Earth-moon-sun system, and how space technologies let us study changes in Earth and its systems.

• The nebular hypothesis and solar system formation

• Earth as a unique planet

• Stellar classification, magnitude and brightness
• The stellar life cycle

• Tides and eclipses: gravity and three-body alignment

• Seasonal variation, albedo and precession

• Moon phases and solar winds

• Space technologies for studying Earth systems

Unit 6: Lab Numeracy: Accuracy and Precision

The one Curricular Competency taught as its own session across BC's senior sciences: applying accuracy and precision to experimental procedures and data — significant figures, measurement uncertainty, and scientific notation — pitched here to earth-material observations and weather-data recording.

• Significant figures and rounding rules

• Measurement uncertainty and scientific notation