Through ongoing partnership with teachers across New York City, New Visions has developed this course map for a high school earth & space science course fully designed to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the New York State Science Learning Standards (NYSSLS). Each unit follows a common structure: students engage with an anchor phenomenon and develop questions; go through sequences of learning and sense-making to develop and iterate on answers to those questions; then complete a three-dimensional performance task.

Unit 1: Discovering New Worlds Topic: Solar System
Unit 2: Probability of Life in the Universe Topic: Early Solar System, Orbital Motion, and Origin of the Universe
Unit 3: Earthquakes and Tsunamis: Are we at Risk? Topic: Earth’s Interior_ Waves, Energy and Risk
Unit 4: Climate Change Throughout Human History Topic: Coevolution of Climate and Life
Unit 5: Human Decision Making Topic: Human Sustainability
Unit 6: More Hurricanes and Blizzards in NYC? Topic: Climate Change and Severe Weather

These are source data and an article from the Journal "Nature" to use with students for anchoring the effects of Global Climate change on ice durations of local lakes. The article describes ice conditions and methadologies of 6 Wisconsin Lakes. There are links to raw data that can be used to generate graphs and develop sensemaking for students.  

Lake Superior plays a vital role in the lives of people who live and work on its shores, and therefore all sorts of data are recorded to help understand and take care of it. Forrest, a high school student, used data from archives to figure out if the ice season was getting shorter each winter in his home town. The length of the ice season is important because it frees the island residents from working around a ferry schedule, allowing them to drive on the ice to get to the mainland.

This resource has been evaluated using the HQIM Rubric found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ppn2frk888P0KwW6IJ8wDJNTa32Pa2T0nzrR6K8Tzos/edit?usp=drive_link