Instructional Committee approves moving 'Environmental Earth Science' to full board, proposes replacing 'Earth Science'

K–12 science coordinator Mister Wasproch presented a proposal on Nov. 4 to replace the district’s traditional Earth Science course with a new Environmental Earth Science course aimed at making freshman science more relevant to today’s environmental challenges.

"Students aren't really connecting with the content of Earth science," Wasproch said, describing survey feedback from teachers and students that motivated the shift toward a phenomenon-based, interdisciplinary curriculum that keeps essential Earth-science standards but adds units on land use, resource and sustainability, and water resources and monitoring.

Wasproch told the committee the course would remain a four-unit offering with reorganized units to emphasize hydrosphere and atmosphere interactions, human impacts on climate, and hands-on environmental monitoring such as water testing and purification. He said core topics such as Earth's history and space-system content will be retained where appropriate but refocused so the material feels more applicable to students.

Board members asked whether astronomy and space-system content would be removed; Wasproch said "We're not losing material," and that essential standards will be placed into the new course while the approach shifts to real-world phenomena. He also said multiple freshman sections of the course currently run at both high schools and that the new offering could be positioned as an elective to increase student choice.

The committee voted by consensus to delete 'Earth Science' and to add 'Environmental Earth Science'; both items were advanced to the full board for final approval.