Earth Science · Concept Lessons

Master Earth Science from first principles

NY Regents Earth Science prep. Astronomy, meteorology, minerals and rocks, plate tectonics, and Earth's surface processes.

Astronomy, mapping, weather, minerals and rocks, plate tectonics, and surface processes — every Earth Science Regents essential on one page.

Latitude and longitude, contour lines, gradient, and how to read a topographic map and build an elevation profile.

Why we have day and night, why seasons happen (the tilt, not distance), and the evidence that Earth rotates and revolves.

Orbits and eccentricity, moon phases and eclipses, tides, and the evidence for an expanding universe.

What makes something a mineral, and how to identify one using hardness, cleavage, luster, streak, and other physical properties.

The three rock families — igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic — how to tell them apart, and how the rock cycle recycles them.

Earth's layered interior, the three types of plate boundary, mantle convection, and the evidence that the continents move.

Focus vs epicenter, P-waves and S-waves, locating an earthquake, and the three volcano types.

How rock breaks down, how it's carried away and sorted, and the landscapes glaciers, rivers, and wind leave behind.

Air pressure and wind, reading station models and isobars, fronts and air masses, and what makes weather stormy or clear.

Solar energy and the water cycle, the factors that control climate and the greenhouse effect, and how geologists read the age of rock layers.