Earth Science

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Free teaching and subject materials for delivering Earth science-related content across UK KS1-KS5 subject areas.

Earth science subject material occurs throughout the school curricula in the UK and this site hosts a wide range of free Earth science materials for use by teachers at all levels of education, including lesson plans, activities, and expert knowledge boosters.

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Key Stage 1 (5-7)

Browse KS1 Resources

Science

Everyday Materials and Resources

Living Things and their Habitats

  • Living things, dead things and things that have never been alive
  • Identify and name a variety of plants and animals
  • The different types of habitats and how plants and animals are suited to living in them
  • Simple environmental interactions, such as food chains and food webs
Geography

Human Geography

  • Using basic geographical vocabulary to refer to key human features, including cities, towns, villages, factories, farms, etc.
  • Impact of human actions on the environment
  • Sustainability, including the concept of “reduce, reuse, recycle”

Physical Geography

  • Seasons and weather in the UK
  • Where hot and cold areas of the world are found
  • How the location of hot and cold areas relates to the Equator and North and South Poles
  • Using basic geographical vocabulary to refer to key physical features, including beaches, cliffs, coasts, forests, mountains, etc.
  • Water and the water cycle
  • Climate change

Fieldwork and Skills

  • Using maps, atlases and globes to identify places in the world
  • Use simple compass directions and locational and directional language to describe features and routes on a map
  • Devise a simple map, using and constructing basic symbols in a key
  • Use fieldwork and observational skills to study the geography of the local area
Key Stage 2 (7-11)

Browse KS2 Resources

Science

Rocks

  • Compare and group together different types of rocks on the basis of their appearance and physical properties
  • Describe, in simple terms, how fossils are formed when things that were once living are trapped within rock
  • Recognising that soil is made from rocks and organic matter
  • The importance of soils

Living Things and their Habitats

  • Basic taxonomy, how living things can be grouped in a variety of ways
  • How environments can change and that this sometimes poses dangers to living things
  • Recognise that living things have changed over time
  • Recognise that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth long ago
  • Identify how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment and that adaptation may lead to evolution

Materials and Resources

Earth and Space

  • Describe the movement of the Earth and other planets relative to the Sun in the solar system
  • Describe the movement of the moon relative to the Earth
  • Use the idea of Earth’s rotation to explain day and night and the apparent movement of the Sun across the sky
  • Understanding how the existence of Earth’s magnetic field permits compasses to work
Geography

Human Geography

  • Identifying land-use patterns and how some of these aspects have changed over time
  • The types of settlement and land use, and economic activity including trade links
  • The distribution of natural resources, including energy, food, minerals and water
  • Positive and negative effects of human events upon a place over time
  • Impact of geo-hazards on people

Physical Geography

  • Identifying key physical geographical and topographical features, including hills, mountains, coasts and rivers
  • Identify the position and significance of latitude, longitude, Equator, hemispheres, the Tropics, Arctic and Antarctic Circle, the Prime/Greenwich Meridian, and time zones
  • Climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts and their distribution on Earth
  • Positive and negative effects of natural events upon a place over time
  • Water, the water cycle and water conservation methods
  • Impact of geo-hazards on the landscape
  • How environments change over time, including due to changing weather and seasons

Fieldwork and Skills

  • Use maps, atlases, globes and digital/computer mapping to locate countries and features
  • Use compasses, 4 and 6 figure grid references, map symbols, and keys
  • Perform simple fieldwork to observe, measure record and present the features in the local areas using a range of methods, such as sketch maps, graphs and digital technologies
Key Stage 3 (11-14)

Browse KS3 Resources

Biology

Biodiversity and Ecosystems

  • Understanding the importance of biodiversity
  • How biodiversity can be positively (e.g. conservation methods) and negatively (e.g. pollution) effected by human activity
  • Interdependences of organisms in an ecosystems, including food webs and insect pollinated crops
  • How organisms affect, and are affected by, their environment, including the accumulation of toxic materials

Material Cycles and Energy

Evolution and Inheritance

  • Identify and compare differences between species
  • The variation between species and between individuals of the same species and how they can drive natural selection
  • Changes in the environment which may leave individuals within a species, and some entire species, less well adapted to compete successfully and reproduce, which in turn may lead to extinction
Chemistry

Atoms, Elements and Compounds

  • Where and why simple compounds appear in the real world (e.g. NaCl salt or iron oxide ores)
  • The chemical components that make up common Earth materials such as rocks and minerals
  • How the properties of different minerals (e.g. hardness) is related to its internal atomic structure

Chemical Resources

Earth and Atmosphere

  • The composition and structure of the Earth
  • The rock cycle and formation of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks
  • The composition of the atmosphere
  • Production of carbon dioxide by human activity and the impact on climate
  • The carbon cycle
  • How some chemicals can become pollutants
Geography

Human Geography

Physical Geography

Fieldwork and Skills

  • Use of globes, maps and atlases
  • Interpret Ordnance Survey maps, including using grid references and scale
  • Interpret topographic and thematic maps, and aerial and satellite photographs
  • Use Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to view, analyse and interpret places and data
  • Use fieldwork in contrasting locations to collection, analyse and draw conclusions from geographical data
Physics

Energy

  • Comparing power ratings of appliances and what this implies about the fossil fuel cost to run them
  • Fuels and energy resources
  • The electromagnetic spectrum and the importance of bands outside of visible light for Earth observation

Forces and Waves

  • Earth’s magnetism and its importance for compasses and navigation
  • Describing seismic waves with appropriate terminology and understanding what Earth processes generate them

Space Physics

  • How the seasons are controlled by Earth’s tilt and how they differ in each hemisphere
  • Gravitational forces between the Earth and Moon and what phenomena arise from them
Key Stage 4 (14-16)

Browse KS4 Resources

Biology

Biodiversity and Ecosystems

  • Understand the independency of living organisms and their environments
  • The abiotic and biotic factors affecting communities
  • The importance of biodiversity
  • Positive, such as conservation, and negative, such as pollution, human interactions with ecosystems

Material Cycles and Energy

Evolution and Inheritance

  • How evolution occurs by the process of natural selection and accounts both for biodiversity and how organisms are all related to varying degrees
  • The evidence for evolution, including the fossil record
Chemistry

Atoms, Elements and Compounds

  • The shapes of molecules and the way giant structures are arranged (such as mineral lattices) is of great importance in terms of the way they behave

Chemical Resources and Industry

  • Electrolysis of molten ionic liquids and aqueous ionic solutions as a method of ore extraction
  • Reduction and oxidation, including its relevance to ore formation
  • Carbon compounds, both as fuels and feedstock, and the competing demands for limited resources
  • Extraction and purification of metals
  • Life cycle assessment and recycling to assess environmental impacts associated with all the stages of a product’s life
  • The viability of recycling of certain materials
  • Crude oil as a finite resource
  • Fractional distillation of crude oil and cracking to make more useful materials
  • Combustion and hydrocarbons and their implications in fueling anthropogenic climate change
  • Alternative extraction methods, such as phytomining

Earth and Atmospheric Science

  • Evidence for composition and evolution of Earth’s atmosphere since its formation
  • Evidence, and uncertainties in evidence, for additional anthropogenic causes of climate change
  • Potential effects of, and mitigation of, increased levels of carbon dioxide and methane on the Earth’s climate
  • Common atmospheric pollutants and their sources
  • Earth’s water resources and obtaining potable water
Economics

Resources

  • The economic importance of geology, due to the value of minerals, rocks and oil and gas resources
  • Global trade of geological materials
  • How a country’s wealth is often dictated by the geological history of the area, such as concentration of valuable ore deposits
Geography

Human Activities and Natural Resources

  • How natural environments are at risk from economic development
  • Sustainable management of ecosystems and environments
  • How food, water and energy are fundamental to human development
  • The changing demand and provision of resources in the UK, which creates opportunities and challenges
  • Water as a resource, including increasing demand and strategies to increase supply
  • Renewable and non-renewable energy sources
  • Economic and environmental issues associated with exploitation of energy and water sources
  • Waste hierarchy and the concept of “reduce, reuse and recycle”

Physical Landscapes

Natural Hazards

  • Definition and types of natural hazards, such as tectonic or climatic
  • Factors affecting hazard risk and hazard mitigation strategies
  • Primary and secondary hazard response strategies

Climate Change

  • Natural and anthropogenic causes of climate change
  • The range of effects climate change has on people on the environment
  • The evidence for climate change from the beginning of the Quaternary period to the present day
  • Adaptation and mitigation strategies to tackle climate change

Geology

Fieldwork and Skills

  • Describing, analysing and explaining fieldwork data
  • The use of atlases and Ordnance Survey maps to identify features and make interpretations
  • Use and understand latitude- and longitude-based coordinates
  • Use and understand grid reference-based coordinates
Geology

Rocks and Minerals

Fossils, Evolution and Geologic Time

  • Fossils as indicators of past environments and evidence for evolution
  • The sedimentary rock record and what it tells us about Earth history
  • How geological events can be dated and interpreted using stratigraphic principles
  • How the decay of radioactive materials provides a method of absolute dating for rocks and minerals
  • The development of diversity in the evolution of life and how this development was punctuated by major extinction events

Earth’s Structure and Tectonics

  • Plate tectonics, plate boundaries and associated phenomena
  • The evidence for plate tectonics and how the theory evolved out of continental drift
  • How Earth’s layers can be divided based on their chemical or their physical properties

Climate Change

  • Comparing modern-day anthropogenic and ancient climate change
  • The concept of greenhouse and icehouse climates, and global glaciation events
  • Factors that determine sea level rise and fall
  • Sources of greenhouse gases, both natural and anthropogenic
  • Positive and negative feedback loops
  • Climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies

Planetary Geology

  • Similarities and differences between the Earth and its planetary neighbours
  • How meteorites provide evidence for the composition of the Earth
  • How planetary landforms provide evidence for unseen Earth processes, such as lunar impact craters

Geo-Hazards

  • The various types of geo-hazards, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides and tsunamis
  • Risk analysis and the limits of hazard prediction
  • Methods to mitigate risk from geo-hazards

Geological Resources

  • The concepts of resources and reserves
  • The many uses for mineral resources, such as construction, manufacturing and energy generation
  • Prospecting techniques, such as mapping, boreholes, geophysical techniques and geochemical techniques
  • Formation, migration, accumulation and extraction of oil and gas resources
  • Environmental consequences and remediation strategies of resource extraction
Physics

Energy

  • Renewable and non-renewable energy sources
  • Changes in how renewable and non-renewable energy sources are used
  • Nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, and its potential for energy production
  • Radioactive nuclei, including their ability to date rocks
  • Radioactive materials, irradiation, contamination and their associated hazardous effects
  • Safe waste disposal of radioactive waste
  • Political, social, environmental and ethical issues relating to nuclear energy
  • Natural background radiation and risks to health, such as radon gas

Forces and Waves

  • Earth’s magnetism and its importance for compasses and navigation
  • Describing seismic waves with appropriate terminology and understanding what Earth processes generate them
  • Uses in the electromagnetic spectrum, including in relation to Earth observation

Space Physics

A-Level (16+)

Browse A-Level Resources

Biology

Nutrient Cycles and Environments

  • The carbon cycle, including how human activities affect it and its importance for understanding climate change
  • How climate change affects the distribution of species and is a possible cause of extinction
  • The role of bacteria in the nitrogen cycle and the significance of nitrates in producing proteins and nucleic acids
  • The importance of human activities in producing the conditions needed for nitrification and the economic importance of the nitrogen cycle
  • Process of eutrophication and algal blooms often as a consequence of human activity

Human Impact on the Environment

  • The reasons for species becoming endangered and the causes of extinction
  • Issues in agricultural exploitation including conflicts between production and conservation and possible means to resolve them
  • Increased human pressures on the environment including the need to achieve sustainability
  • Need for political decision making to be informed by knowledge based on sound scientific principles
  • Positive, such as conservation, and negative, such as pollution, human interactions with ecosystems

Variation and Evolution

  • Darwin’s theory of evolution that existing species have arisen through modification of ancestral species by natural selection
  • The evidence for evolution, including the fossil record
Built Environment

Designing and Constructing Substructures

  • Methods for investigating subsoil, such as trial pits, boreholes and soil analysis
  • Foundation design and its reliance on accurate information regarding soil properties
  • How those foundation designs need to consider things like soil parameters, loads to be supported or bearing capacity
  • The many methods of soil testing in the lab and in the field
  • Techniques available to improve the condition of subsoil, such as installation of drainage, grouting and injection or chemical stabilisation

Factors Influencing the Design Process for Buildings

  • Aware of the parameters of the planning process, such as impact on local area, environment and any potential issues
  • Aware of the constraints that information gathered from the planning process may have on building design
  • Flood risk
  • Contaminated land

Properties of Construction Materials

Building Services Systems

  • Know the difference between renewable and non-renewable forms of energy and be able to categorise various forms of energy:
  • Know the common non-renewable forms of energy, coal, oil and gas
  • Know the common renewable forms of energy, solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal and bioenergy
  • The energy forms used in electrical, air conditioning, refrigeration and heating systems
Chemistry

Atoms, Elements and Compounds

  • The shapes of molecules and the way giant structures are arranged (such as mineral lattices) is of great importance in terms of the way they behave

Chemical Resources and Industry

  • Social, economic and environmental impacts of chemical synthesis and production of energy
  • Role of green chemistry in improving sustainability in all aspects of developments

Hydrocarbons

  • Understanding of combustion reactions of alkanes
  • Benefits and drawbacks relating to the use of fossil fuels, including formation of carbon dioxide, acidic gases and carbon monoxide
  • The use of petroleum as both a fuel and material
  • Crude oil as a finite resource
Economics

Resources

  • The economic importance of geology, due to the value of minerals, rocks and oil and gas resources
  • Global trade of geological materials
  • How a country’s wealth is often dictated by the geological history of the area, such as concentration of valuable ore deposits
  • Understanding of the environment as a scarce resource
  • Factors influence the supply and demand of geological resources, such as fossil fuels and minerals
Environmental Science

Conditions for Life on Earth

  • How the main conditions, which allowed early life to develop and survive on planet Earth, came about
  • How the presence of life on Earth has brought about environmental change
  • How historical conditions for life were monitored in the past and how these conditions have changed over time
  • Changes in monitoring methods that have allowed more accurate estimations of past conditions on Earth
  • The importance of Earth’s atmosphere, position in the Solar System, orbital behaviour and magnetosphere in maintaining habitability
  • Biogeochemical cycles

Conservation of Biodiversity

  • The importance of the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable habitat management strategies
  • Securing future supplies of materials such as wood, fibres and oils commonly sourced from habitats
  • Ecosystem services and their interaction with each other
  • Atmospheric composition and the role of living organisms in regulating it
  • Importance of living organisms in biogeochemical cycles
  • Understanding of interspecies relationships such as pollination and habitat provision
  • Soil maintenance and the importance of living organisms for soil formation and erosion control
  • How humans influence biodiversity in a range of contexts and impact both biotic and abiotic features of a habitat
  • Consequences of habitat destruction often driven by human activities, such as deforestation or urbanisation
  • Methods for managing and conserving habitats in different climates

The Atmosphere

  • Global climate change and how interconnected natural systems cause environmental change
  • The anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gases, residence times and relative effects: CO2, CH4, NOx, tropospheric ozone, CFCs.
  • Physical, chemical and biological changes to Earth due to anthropogenic climate change
  • Monitoring and predicting climate change, and its difficulties and limitations
  • Impact of positive and negative feedback mechanisms on Earth’s climate
  • Understanding of the need for controlling Earth’s greenhouse gas levels
  • Causes of ozone depletion, the “Ozone Hole” and its consequences

The Hydrosphere

  • Understand that the natural hydrological cycle is in a state of dynamic equilibrium and can be affected by human activity
  • Methods for sustainable exploitation of water sources and the consequences of overexploitation
  • Understanding of the consequences of changes in the hydrological cycle
  • Understand the impacts of changes in thermohaline circulation on the climate of countries around the North Atlantic, including the UK
  • Increasing sustainability by water treatment and management of sources

Mineral Resources

  • The importance of minerals extracted from the lithosphere, such as metals and construction materials, their status as a non-renewable resource and exploration techniques
  • The geological processes that produce localised concentrations of recoverable mineral deposits
  • The concept of resources and reserves and the distinction between them
  • Mining, the factors affecting its viability, its environmental impacts and ways to mitigate them
  • The need for recycling and factors preventing its widespread use

Biogeochemical Cycles

  • Understand which and how processes in the carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycle are affected by human activities
  • The need for sustainable management of the carbon cycle and development of methods to counteract human carbon dioxide output
  • Understanding of the alternatives to fossil fuel use
  • The importance of conserving critical environments such as peat bogs

Soils

  • How human activities affect soil fertility
  • Causes of soil degradation and erosion
  • Soil management strategies to increase sustainability
Geography

Water and Carbon Cycles

  • The water cycle, including stores, driving processes, natural variation and the impact of human activity
  • Geographical features relating to the water cycle such as drainage basins
  • The carbon cycle, including stores, driving processes, natural variation and the impact of human activity
  • The key role of carbon and water stores and cycles in supporting life on Earth, especially in regards to maintaining a habitable climate
  • Interactions between the water and carbon cycles and the role of feedback loops within and between
  • Human interventions in the carbon cycle to mitigate the impacts of climate change

Hot Desert Systems

  • Sources of sediment and energy in hot desert environments
  • Geomorphological processes acting in hot deserts and the resulting features
  • The dominance and different types of aeolian (wind) transport in hot deserts
  • Origin and development of desert landforms
  • The changing extent and distribution of hot deserts over the last 10,000 years
  • The causes of desertification, especially climate change and human impact

Coastal Systems

  • Sources of sediment and energy in coastal environments
  • Geomorphological processes acting in coastal environments and the resulting features
  • The different types of marine transport in coastal environments
  • Origin and development of coastal landforms
  • Eustatic, isostatic and tectonic sea level change in the past 10,000 years
  • Climate change’s impacts on coastal environments
  • Human intervention in coastal landscapes such as to prevent flooding or erosion

Glacial Systems

  • Historical patterns of glacial advance and retreat
  • Geomorphological processes acting in glacial environments and the resulting features
  • The different types of glacial transport in glacial environments
  • Origin and development of glacial landscapes
  • Concept of environment fragility and the human impact on cold environments, especially with regards to anthropogenic climate change

Hazards

  • The concept of a hazard in a geographical context
  • Nature, forms and potential impacts of natural hazards
  • Hazard perception and its economic and cultural determinants
  • Hazard mitigation and response
  • Earth structure, internal energy sources and the plate tectonic theory of crustal evolution
  • Destructive, constructive and conservative plate margins, their characteristic processes and associated landforms
  • Nature of vulcanity, its relation to plate tectonics and the many forms of volcanic hazards
  • Nature of seismicity, its relation to plate tectonics and the many forms of seismic hazards
  • Nature of storms, its relation to climate and the many forms of meteorological hazards
  • Primary and secondary impacts of hazards
  • Primary and secondary human responses to hazards

Ecosystems Under Stress

  • Distribution and main characteristics of coral reef ecosystems
  • Natural and human factors influencing the health and survival of reefs
  • Future prospects for coral reefs, especially in regards to anthropogenic climate change
Geology

Practical Skills

  • Experimental design and methods
  • Units, observations and data formatting
  • Processing, analysis and interpretation of qualitative and quantitative data
  • Data collection methods in the lab and field, including rock descriptions, use of compass clinometers, photomicrographs, and diagnostic tests
  • Interpretation of geological maps including recognising geomorphological features and constructing accurate vertical cross sections

Foundations in Geology

  • Mineral description and ID
  • Mineral structure and chemistry
  • The rock cycle
  • Description, classification, identification and petrology of sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks
  • Origin, description, and identification of fossils, and their use in palaeoenvironmental interpretation
  • Use of radiometric dating in rocks and minerals, and the plotting of half life curves
  • Geochronology and the use of eras and periods in the Phanerozoic using biostratigraphy

Earth Structure, Tectonics and Petrology

  • Earth formation and structure, and the differentiation of the Earth
  • Application of geophysical monitoring and investigation methods
  • Plate tectonic boundaries, processes, resulting features and driving forces
  • Magma genesis, evolution and its relation to intrusive features alongside extrusive features and hazards
  • Igneous petrology, element substitution in minerals, assimilation, differentiation and fractionation in magmas, and the formation of layered intrusions
  • Mid ocean ridges, sea floor production and hydrothermal processes
  • Metamorphic petrology, including metamorphic grade, isograd interpretation, formation and interpretation of metamorphic fabrics
  • Rock deformation features, and identifying them via photos, maps, and cross sections
  • Earthquake processes

Interpreting the Past

  • Uniformitarianism, the facies approach, and facies associations
  • Turbidity currents, Bouma sequences, cyclothems, and vertical and lateral facies changes
  • Sediment transport, sedimentary structures and use to interpret way-up and palaeoenvironment in fluvial, desert, and marine systems.
  • Construction and interpretation of graphic logs
  • Geochronology, lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic correlation, and relative dating principles

Economic Geology

  • Deposition of banded iron formations and implications for their environments
  • Fluids in rocks, Darcy’s Law, groundwater flow, quality and chemistry
  • Exploration for metals and associated methods
  • Crustal abundances of elements, factors which produce economic deposits and the different styles of deposit

Geo-Hazards

  • Earthquake processes, liquefaction, earthquake engineering, seismic hazard risk analysis
  • Probabilistic and deterministic forecasting of geo-hazards
  • Use of GIS to improve disaster planning and communication
  • UK geo-hazards, including shrink-swell clays, subsidence, landslides and tsunami
  • Engineering geology, rock and soil weathering and characterisation
  • Tunnels, dams and contaminated ground

Basin Analysis

  • How the Earth has changed through time and how to interpret this from the geological record and geochemistry of the rocks
  • Evolution of life on earth as a record of gradual change and the significance of mass extinctions
  • Lagerstätten deposits and exceptional preservation
  • Hydrocarbon basins; formation, maturation and capture of oil and gas, and the exploration processes.
  • Whole basin analysis, integrating sedimentary structures and processes with biostratigraphy and palaeoenvironmental analysis
Physics

Nuclear Decay and Energy

  • The concept of spontaneous nuclear decay and the nature of alpha, beta and gamma radiation
  • The concept of half-life, activity and the decay constant
  • Benefits and risks of nuclear power stations
  • Radioactive materials, irradiation, contamination and their associated hazardous effects
  • Political, social, environmental and ethical issues relating to nuclear energy
  • Natural background radiation and risks to health, such as radon gas

Forces and Waves

  • Earth’s magnetism and its importance for compasses and navigation
  • Describing seismic waves with appropriate terminology and understanding what Earth processes generate them
  • Uses in the electromagnetic spectrum, including in relation to Earth observation

Energy and the Environment

  • Understanding the balance between energy inflow from the Sun, energy re-radiated from the Earth and the need for greenhouse gases to maintain a habitable temperature
  • Understanding of electromagnetic radiation and its various bands
  • Identifying common sources of renewable and non-renewable energy and discuss their development across the world
  • Using equations to explain the mechanisms behind sea level rise due to anthropogenic climate change

Space Physics

  • The use of artificial satellites in Earth monitoring
  • Atmospheric circulation
  • Oceanic circulation

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals


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