---
title: "Earth's Systems"
description: "32 topics in Science, in the order they build on each other."
canonical: https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/areas/earths-systems
source: https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/areas/earths-systems.md
retrieved: 2026-10-19
---

> **Agent view.** This is the Markdown twin of the page, for tools and assistants.
> When to use this site, and the call that answers each job: https://lightmysky.com/agent-instructions.md
> API description (OpenAPI 3.1): https://lightmysky.com/openapi.json · Authentication: https://lightmysky.com/auth.md
> Pricing: https://lightmysky.com/pricing.md · Catalog: https://lightmysky.com/llms.txt · Full catalog: https://lightmysky.com/llms-full.txt
> Every machine-readable file on this domain: https://lightmysky.com/.well-known/ai-catalog.json
> Ask for Markdown with `Accept: text/markdown`, a `.md` address, or `?mode=agent`.

# Earth's Systems

32 topics in Science, in the order they build on each other.

Page: https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/areas/earths-systems

- [How Organisms Shape Habitats](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/how-organisms-shape-habitats-mt_qixeaiswFP): Construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals can change the environment to meet their needs
- [Local weather patterns](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/local-weather-patterns-mt_HZvTriQWTh): Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time, recording temperature, rainfall, and other conditions
- [Seasonal changes](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/seasonal-changes-mt_go5i87u2b9): Observe changes across the four seasons and describe weather associated with each season, including how day length varies
- [Evaporation and condensation](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/evaporation-and-condensation-mt_zCGwH1OQZa): Use evaporation, condensation, precipitation, collection, transpiration, water vapour, runoff and groundwater to describe water changing form and moving along different paths in the water cycle
- [Shapes of land and water](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/shapes-of-land-and-water-mt_KsKLVW_ssY): Develop a model to represent the shapes and kinds of land (mountains, valleys, plains) and bodies of water (rivers, lakes, oceans) in an area
- [Graphing seasonal weather data](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/graphing-seasonal-weather-data-mt_NYsz6QgaaE): Represent data in tables and graphical displays to describe typical weather conditions expected during a particular season
- [Climates around the world](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/climates-around-the-world-mt_Gm12BzcCfX): Obtain and combine information to describe climates in different regions of the world, distinguishing between weather and climate
- [Types of rocks](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/types-of-rocks-mt_bqL8DD1SbV): Use vocabulary for Earth's geological processes and rock types — igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic, erosion, weathering, deposition, fossil, sediment, strata, permeable, impermeable — and apply these when explaining how rocks form and how landscapes change over time
- [Rock layers and Earth's history](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/rock-layers-and-earths-history-mt_0_K-GrKQpd): Interpret cross-section diagrams of the Earth's interior, geological strata, and rock cycle; read and label layers (crust, mantle, outer core, inner core); understand that deeper layers in sedimentary sequences are older
- [Properties of rocks](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/properties-of-rocks-mt_R6YoRXkRxS): Compare and group different kinds of rocks based on their appearance and simple physical properties such as hardness, texture, and colour
- [How fossils form](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/how-fossils-form-mt_mwirOvigWD): Describe how remains or traces of ancient living things can be preserved as fossils, including in rock formed from layers of mud or sand
- [Rocks and soil](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/rocks-and-soil-mt_yhhprm7dZK): Recognise that soils are made from rocks and organic matter, and that different soils have different properties
- [Erosion and weathering](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/erosion-and-weathering-mt_vAP_A986IQ): Make observations and measurements to provide evidence of the effects of weathering or the rate of erosion by water, ice, wind, or vegetation
- [Preventing Erosion](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/preventing-erosion-mt_m6UaSmrQVG): Compare multiple solutions designed to slow or prevent wind or water from changing the shape of the land
- [Finding patterns in data](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/finding-patterns-in-data-mt_-G6erQvLig): Analyse and interpret data from maps to describe patterns of Earth's features, recognising that many features result from processes that occur over long periods
- [Where water is found on Earth](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/where-water-is-found-on-earth-mt_nRF_VRntrW): Identify water in oceans, rivers, lakes, glaciers, underground and the air, and recognise liquid water, solid ice and gaseous water vapour
- [Weathering, Erosion and How Soil Forms](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/weathering-erosion-and-how-soil-forms-mt_nQOPOt1VTH): Rock at the surface is attacked chemically and physically before anything moves it, and the two processes help each other because breaking rock up gives the chemistry more surface. Soil is what remains where that breakdown mixes with the products of life, which is why soil depth and fertility vary with climate.
- [Sediment on the Move: Rivers, Coasts and Where It Settles](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/sediment-on-the-move-rivers-coasts-and-where-it-settles-mt_d1vVJBG6K7): Moving water carries grains until it slows, and the size it can carry falls sharply as it does, which is why deposits are sorted. Following a grain from a hillside to a delta explains most river and coastal landforms without needing a separate rule for each one.
- [How Earth systems interact](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/how-earth-systems-interact-mt_LKagN9GJPX): Develop a model to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere interact as connected Earth systems
- [Salt Water vs Fresh Water](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/salt-water-vs-fresh-water-mt_LsY4-T2fU7): Describe and graph the amounts of salt water and fresh water in various reservoirs to provide evidence about the distribution of water on Earth
- [The Layered Atmosphere and Why Temperature Reverses With Height](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/the-layered-atmosphere-and-why-temperature-reverses-with-height-mt_2icQ747JhN): Air thins smoothly with height but temperature does not, and each reversal marks a different thing absorbing radiation. Those temperature layers decide where air can rise, which is why nearly all weather is trapped in the bottom one.
- [Earth's Energy Balance and the Greenhouse Effect, Quantified](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/earths-energy-balance-and-the-greenhouse-effect-quantified-mt_dDV2fr06nO): A planet settles at the temperature where it radiates away as much as it absorbs, and that calculation gives an Earth well below freezing. The gap between that figure and the real surface temperature is the greenhouse effect, measured rather than asserted.
- [Forcing, Feedback and Climate Sensitivity](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/forcing-feedback-and-climate-sensitivity-mt_os28W6fEkW): A change to the energy balance is a forcing, and the system's response depends on feedbacks that amplify or damp it. Sensitivity is the number that summarises all of them, and it is uncertain mainly because clouds can feed back either way.
- [Global Circulation: Cells, Jets and Why Deserts Sit Where They Do](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/global-circulation-cells-jets-and-why-deserts-sit-where-they-do-mt_nHAXncXpaS): The tropics receive more energy than they radiate and the poles less, and the atmosphere moves the difference in a pattern of overturning cells bent by the Earth's rotation. Where air sinks it dries, which is why the great deserts lie in two bands rather than at random.
- [Palaeoclimate: Ice Cores, Isotopes and the Record of Past Change](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/palaeoclimate-ice-cores-isotopes-and-the-record-of-past-change-mt_JabMZ5ZeaL): Past climate is reconstructed from proxies, each of which records something related to temperature rather than temperature itself. Ice cores are the strongest case because they trap the air of the time alongside an isotope thermometer, letting greenhouse gas and temperature be compared directly.
- [The Ocean in Motion: Wind-Driven Gyres and the Deep Overturning](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/the-ocean-in-motion-wind-driven-gyres-and-the-deep-overturning-mt_ZaWclUQ-fh): Surface currents are driven by the wind and steered by rotation into basin-scale gyres, while a much slower circulation is driven by density differences from temperature and salt. The deep branch carries heat and carbon on a timescale of centuries, which is why its state matters for climate.
- [Seawater Chemistry: the Carbonate System and pH](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/seawater-chemistry-the-carbonate-system-and-ph-mt_BrdrNZmBzE): Seawater's coupled carbonate equilibria resist pH change. Adding carbon dioxide lowers pH and carbonate availability. Calcium carbonate dissolution depends on saturation for the relevant mineral, which varies with water chemistry, temperature, salinity and pressure rather than a universal depth or pH threshold.
- [Plate Tectonics: the Evidence and the Engine](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/plate-tectonics-the-evidence-and-the-engine-mt_K4hJlyOZ7p): The idea that continents move was resisted for fifty years because nobody could say what pushed them, and it was accepted when the sea floor turned out to be spreading and recording magnetic reversals as it went. Density differences driving slow flow in the mantle are what make the plates move, and every boundary type follows from the direction of that motion.
- [The Carbon Cycle on Two Timescales](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/the-carbon-cycle-on-two-timescales-mt_OXBubQOPk7): Carbon moves fast between air, ocean and life, and slowly between rock and everything else through weathering and volcanism. Burning fossil carbon moves an amount that belongs to the slow cycle into the fast one, which is why the surplus takes so long to clear.
- [Minerals and the Three Rock Families](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/minerals-and-the-three-rock-families-mt_S0edEKh084): A rock is an assemblage of minerals, and which minerals are present plus how they are arranged says how the rock formed. Grain size in an igneous rock records cooling rate, sorting in a sedimentary one records transport, and banding in a metamorphic one records directed pressure.
- [Reading a Rock Sequence: Superposition, Fossils and Correlation](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/reading-a-rock-sequence-superposition-fossils-and-correlation-mt_gIwqGoQsag): A cliff face is a sequence of events in order, and a few simple rules put them in that order without any dates at all. Fossils then let sequences in different places be matched, which is how a regional history is assembled from scattered outcrops.
- [Deep Time: Radiometric Dating and the Geological Column](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/deep-time-radiometric-dating-and-the-geological-column-mt_w5DL8yRghy): Radioactive decay gives a clock that started when a mineral crystallised, and choosing the right isotope pair for the age being measured is most of the skill. Hanging numbers on the relative sequence is what turned the geological column into a timescale with an age for the Earth.