Earth Science 30

Unit 1: Career Exploration

Earth-science career paths in Saskatchewan and beyond: the range of occupations, the education and professional qualifications they require, and the regulatory bodies that govern the field.

• Earth-science career paths and qualifications

Unit 2: Student-Directed Study

A staged, self-directed earth-science investigation: designing a testable inquiry and carrying it out, then analysing and presenting the findings.

• Designing the investigation
• Carrying out and analysing
• Presenting and reflecting

Unit 3: Foundations of Earth Science

The big picture of earth science: its multi-disciplinary systems approach and Earth's four spheres, the theory of plate tectonics, and how geologists read Earth's history through the fossil record, dating methods, and the geologic time scale.

• Earth's spheres and their interactions
• The multi-disciplinary, systems approach

• Evidence for continental drift and plate tectonics
• Plate boundaries and Earth's surface features
• Measuring and predicting plate motion

• The fossil record and the geologic time scale
• Relative and absolute dating methods
• Catastrophic events and the fossil record

Unit 4: Lithosphere

Earth's rocky outer layer: how minerals and the three rock groups form and cycle, how mineral and fossil-fuel resources are located and extracted, and how deposition, weathering, and erosion sculpt Saskatchewan's surface geography.

• Minerals and their identification
• The three rock groups and the rock cycle
• Weathering, erosion, and depositional environments

• Locating mineral and fossil-fuel resources
• Resource extraction and its impacts
• Geophysical surveys and sub-surface anomalies

• Landforms and the processes that shape them
• Mapping and monitoring surface geography

Unit 5: Atmosphere and Hydrosphere

Earth's air and water systems: the composition of the atmosphere and what changes it over time, and the characteristics of the hydrosphere - groundwater, rivers, glaciers, and oceans - and how they interact with the other spheres.

• Composition and history of the atmosphere
• Weather, climate data, and extreme events
• Reading ancient climates from proxies

• Groundwater and its movement
• Rivers, glaciers, and surface water processes
• Oceans, currents, and climate