Hi everyone! Sal Khan here with Iman Howard, our manager for all of our STEM content on Khan Academy. We wanted to welcome you to the Middle School Earth and Space Sciences course. Iman, why should folks be excited about this?
Iman: Middle School Earth and Space Sciences is really exciting because it answers the questions of what’s happening in our universe. We start big, looking at Earth’s position in our solar system and its relationship to gravity. We look at why we have seasons and how Earth’s position affects them. We dig into the water cycle and how the same water we drink today is the same water that dinosaurs drank. We look at the rock cycle and why mountains are here, how the plates below us are moving, and how plate tectonics has changed the landscape. Finally, we talk about how we use resources on Earth and how it impacts our climate.
Sal: I’ll just double down on everything you said. It’s appropriate to use the pun “dig into it” for Earth and Space! This course starts to answer the questions from the cosmos to Earth. Over billions of years, the Earth has been alive in certain ways, and we are part of the Earth. The water and air we breathe is the same as it has been for billions of years. Understanding this gives me goosebumps. I think folks will be very excited about this course.