Grades 4-6 Module 2: Planet Earth, Water, Weather, and Space

By Prof. Alexey Categories: Science
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About Course

Available from October 30, 2026:

Module 2: Planet Earth, Water, Weather, and Space

How are rocks, rivers, clouds, and planets connected? What shapes the land, drives the weather, and causes seasons on Earth?

In this five-week science module, students explore the changing Earth and its place in space. They investigate rocks, minerals, soils, weathering, erosion, and landforms, then follow water through watersheds, groundwater, and the water cycle. They also study weather, climate, clouds, and weather instruments before exploring the Sun, Moon, seasons, eclipses, and the scale of the solar system.

The emphasis is not on memorizing definitions. Students learn to observe carefully, test ideas with evidence, explain what they see, and recognize when more than one process may be involved.

Who is the course for?

This course is designed for homeschool students in Grades 4-6.

No previous science course is required. Core explanations are accessible to younger students, while optional Going Further readings and research questions give older or more advanced learners additional depth.

How the course works

The module contains 15 classes which can be taken at any pace; three classes per week yield a well paced five week course.

Each class includes:

  • a short instructor video;
  • a complete handout with structured reading-and-work lesson;
  • questions and journal activities;
  • a clear Words to Know glossary;
  • an optional Going Further reading;
  • opportunities to practise observation, measurement, explanation, and fair testing.

Most classes take approximately 30-35 minutes. Students complete hands-on experiments and investigation each week, using commonly accessible materials (no special science kits are required).

Founding Family pricing:

The discounted rate applies for registrations within 2 weeks of the enrolment opening date.

Certificates

Every student who completes the module receives a certificate of completion.

Students who complete this module together with any two additional Stream 1 science modules will also receive a certificate recognizing the completion of a full academic year of science study.

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What Will You Learn?

  • You will learn how rocks, soil, water, weather, and space systems shape our planet. You will explore erosion, the water cycle, clouds, climate, seasons, Moon phases, eclipses, and the solar system.

Course Content

Week 1: Rocks: From the Centre of the Earth to the Soil
Identifying rocks and minerals by hardness, streak, and other tested properties rather than by colour. The three rock families — igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic — and the rock cycle that connects them. What soil is made of, the layers beneath our feet, and tracing everyday materials back to the ground they came from.

  • W1 Class 1: Inside the Earth, and Igneous Rocks
  • W1 Class 2: Rocks from Pieces, Rocks Transformed
  • W1 Class 3: Soil: Rock’s Final Chapter

Week 2: Weathering, Erosion, and Landforms
Mechanical and chemical weathering, and why nothing at the surface is permanent. Erosion and deposition by water, ice, wind, and gravity, and the landforms each one builds. Reading the evidence that land has moved, the lesson of the Dust Bowl, and how farmland and soil are protected today.

Week 3: Water Systems and the Water Cycle
Evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and runoff as a single loop driven by the Sun. Watersheds as an address system, lakes and wetlands, and the groundwater that holds most of our fresh water. What is present in raw water, the sequence a town uses to treat it, and honest numbers on household water use.

Week 4: Weather and Climate
The difference between weather and climate, what sets the air moving, and how air masses and fronts bring change. Why rising air forms cloud, and a field guide to the main cloud types and the weather each one signals. The classical instruments — thermometer, barometer, rain gauge, and wind vane — and running a weather station at home.

Week 5: Sun, Moon, Seasons, and the Solar System
The turning Earth, the Sun's apparent motion across the sky, and what a shadow reveals about time and direction. Moon phases, why seasons come from the tilt of the Earth rather than its distance from the Sun, and the geometry of eclipses. An inventory of the solar system, its true scale, and the robotic spacecraft that have explored it.

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