Skill: course-build → atomise (architecture steps 2 and 6c; standing audits; the no-standard sweep) → write-like-james → review-page @ 0703bb8
MS Earth and Space — course architecture v1 (15 October 2026)
Status: FOR YOUR READ. Every card below carries its default in force; the build is already running on those defaults (your 9 Oct ruling: open rulings never block the build). The three sample topics you asked for are being authored from this page as it stands.
Read this in five minutes. It arranges the knowledge graph's grade 6–8 Earth Science and Space Science atoms into one course: two strands, twenty-one topics, a test at the solid-Earth seam, the Earth seam and the end. Nothing below writes a lesson sentence. The atoms stay in the knowledge graph; one register edit the sweep required is made and logged there.
The takeaways.
- Five atoms cut, because no state framework names them (your 13 Oct ruling, applied by the sweep without asking): the three soil atoms and the two light-year atoms. 108 content lessons remain from 113.
- One course across grades 6–8, video-led, with an article only where a diagram must stay on screen (the rock cycle, the water cycle, a weather map, the Moon's phases round its orbit, Earth's layers). The flow inside every topic is the one you fixed with David today: intro → lessons with their quizzes → summary video → PP100, no mixed practice.
- Five Scientific Reasoning atoms ride inside the investigations that need them (card 3): the fossil inference, the rival explanations for matching fossils across an ocean, a hazard forecast that can be wrong and still useful, one hot day against years of records, and tilt against distance as the explanation for the seasons. MS Physics hosts seven others; neither sibling course hosts these five.
- The three sample topics (card 4): the rock cycle, weather or climate, and Earth's spin and tilt — a process you sort and trace, a data topic with a reading routine and a reasoning atom, and a space model with the band's best-known misconception.
- Tests: a PP100 bank of six items per atom closes every topic; a static test of three forms sits after Topic 6 (the solid Earth), Topic 12 (all of Earth) and Topic 21, the third doubling as the end-of-course test, anchored to the released grade-8 forms (card 2).
Decisions I need from you
Each card: the default in force, why it is a question, my recommendation, one tap. A card is here only where your answer changes what a student learns or what you review.
1. Is this one course across grades 6–8, called Middle School Earth and Space Science?
The course says: one course, "Middle School Earth and Space Science", by default — the knowledge graph's standing call (five subject courses, not fifteen grade-subject ones), which you approved for MS Physics on 13 Oct.
- The 6–8 Earth and Space atoms are authored as dependency chains with no grade on them; TEKS stamps them 6.9–6.11, 7.9–7.10 and 8.9–8.10, so grade checkpoints can be cut from the stamps later if operations need grade shells.
- No state tests middle-school science before grade 8, so a per-grade course would have no official instrument to anchor its exit test to.
- "Earth and Space" keeps the two strands' names; students never see the word strand.
Cost of changing it: a three-course cut re-argues 108 placements against frameworks that disagree on grade.
My recommendation: one course, this name.
A: One course, Middle School Earth and Space Science / B: Three grade courses
2. Do the same released grade-8 forms anchor this course's exit test as anchor MS Physics's?
The course says: yes, by default: STAAR grade 8 science 2022 (PDF) and the 2023–2025 online released forms; Florida's grade 8 Statewide Science Assessment item specifications and sample test; the AzSCI grade 8 sample test and scoring guide — the Earth and Space reporting categories only.
- You approved this anchor set for MS Physics on 13 Oct (its card 9); the same forms carry the Earth and Space items.
- The forms are fetched when the first checkpoint is authored; an examiner's record names which released item shape each test item mirrors, and every test item is written fresh.
- The end-of-course test is cumulative over both strands, as the grade-8 forms are cumulative over grades 6 to 8.
Cost of changing it: none now; the anchor set is read at the first checkpoint.
My recommendation: the same anchor set.
A: Same anchor set as MS Physics / B: A different set (say which)
3. Do these five Scientific Reasoning atoms ride inside this course?
The course says: five reasoning lessons inside the investigations that first need them (Card C), by default: SR-003 an inference goes beyond what you saw (Topic 4, the fossil that says "this was a sea"); SR-004 more than one explanation can fit (Topic 5, the same fossils on both sides of the Atlantic: a land bridge, or the continents moved); SR-082 provisional is not worthless (Topic 6, a hazard forecast that can change and still saves lives); SR-005 stronger and weaker evidence (Topic 9, one cold day against thirty years of records); SR-043 the best explanation for the clues (Topic 13, tilt or distance, judged on the two hemispheres having opposite seasons).
- The five are state-tested: TEKS 6.3A and 6.4B (identically worded at grades 7 and 8 and embedded in every STAAR grade-8 item) and Florida's nature-of-science benchmarks SC.6.N.1.3 and SC.6.N.2.2, which the grade-8 SSA tests outright.
- Their register cross notes name this strand ("Earth Science strand", "Space Science strand") and the cases above are their natural homes; MS Physics hosts seven others (SR-030, 031, 012, 006, 032, 062, 081) and MS Life Science hosts none, so no atom is taught twice. Both sibling chats have been sent the list.
- SR-080 ("theory" doesn't mean "guess") also points here, but its prerequisite chain runs through SR-043, which this course reaches only in Topic 13; so Topics 5 and 21 SAY in plain words that in science "the theory of plate tectonics" and "the Big Bang theory" mean well-supported explanations, and the atom is left to the Scientific Reasoning owner.
Cost of changing it: five lessons here; otherwise the strand's owner teaches them with no Earth or Space case.
My recommendation: host the five.
A: Host the five inside their investigations / B: Leave all Scientific Reasoning to its own course
4. Are the rock cycle, weather-or-climate, and Earth's spin and tilt the right three sample topics?
The course says: Topics 2, 9 and 13 are being authored first, by default, as the three "quite different" samples you asked for today.
- Topic 2 (the rock cycle) is a process the student sorts, explains and traces: a three-way classification, three mechanisms, a prediction and a routine, and the one diagram article the topic plainly needs.
- Topic 9 (weather or climate) is a data topic: a sort you have already ruled on twice at Grades 4 and 5 (weather, season, climate in one lesson), the three climate-makers, a graph-reading routine and the hosted "stronger evidence" reasoning atom.
- Topic 13 (Earth's spin and tilt) is a space model with the band's best-known misconception (seasons come from distance), the Grade 5 day-and-night model carried up, and a hosted reasoning atom.
- Alternatives that are also "different": Topic 14 (the Moon: phases, tides, eclipses), Topic 18 (gravity holds the solar system together), Topic 11 (managing resources).
Cost of changing it: a sample already authored is kept as a finished topic; a swap costs one more topic's authoring before your read.
My recommendation: Topics 2, 9 and 13.
A: Topics 2, 9 and 13 / B: Swap one (say which)
Applied without asking
Your Earth and Space language rulings from Grades 3–5, carried up (each is in the vault; listed here as applied, not asked):
- Earth and every planet is a sphere, never "a ball" (9 Oct, three times). Grade 3's "the Sun is a huge ball of glowing gas" is approved content and is recalled, not re-said, here.
- A model is introduced in your shape: "Earth is too big to see at once, so we look at a globe instead" (9 Oct). Grade 5 coined "model"; this course reuses the word and the Grade 5 lamp-and-globe demonstration lines word for word where day and night return (Topic 13 recalls, never re-teaches).
- Climate keeps Grade 4's coining: "the weather a place usually has at a particular time of year, year after year" (7 Oct); Topic 9's first lesson draws the weather / season / climate contrast in one lesson, as you asked at Grade 4.
- Why Kenya is hotter than Canada: "sunlight lands more spread out", never "closer to the Sun" (9 Oct). The same picture carries the seasons in Topic 13: the tilted half gets the Sun's light more directly, for longer.
- Renewable "because when we use them, they don't run out — nature keeps renewing them"; nonrenewable "because nature does not renew them quicker than we use them up"; fossil fuels "take millions of years to form — just like fossils" (7 Oct; Grade 4 Topic 29's lexicon). Topics 10 and 11 reuse those lines.
- Gravity: Grades 3–5 now hand over "the force of gravity" and "gravity pulls it down", with no "weight" (15 Oct); MS Physics coins "weight" in its Topic 7. This course says "the force of gravity" and "gravity pulls", never the bare "gravity is a force", and its typed items accept "weight" and "gravitational force".
- Seasons were patterns only in Grades 4 and 5 (the register's own scope notes). The tilt is taught for the first time in Topic 13, and the distance belief is confronted there, not planted anywhere.
- A number carries its unit, a space for thousands (4 600 000 000 years), one unit through a comparison, one set of numbers per lesson; direction is a word.
- "Here's the rule" is never said; the rule arrives in natural speech ("So, when a plate…", 30 Sep). An intro gives the big picture of the topic in one scene (30 Sep). Pluto is "a dwarf planet", said once (9 Oct). A solar-system drawing shows relative sizes and says gaps are not to scale (30 Sep). Non-US animals and little-known places become US ones a student can picture (1 and 7 Oct).
Decided here and recorded, not asked (your answer either way would not change what a student learns): topic titles name the thing; the Earth–Moon–Sun atoms (EAR-090 to 095) are taught at the start of the Space half, where their cross notes point, so the Moon's phases sit beside the eclipses that depend on them; Topic 8 teaches "uneven heating sets the air moving" (EAR-065) BEFORE fronts, because it is the cause of every air movement the fronts lessons describe (the register lists it last; its prerequisites allow either); the weather-map routine (EAR-063) and the front prediction (EAR-064) close Topic 8 so the map is read with the fronts already named; the three checkpoint tests sit at the solid-Earth seam (after Topic 6), the Earth seam (after Topic 12) and the end, because sixty-four Earth lessons under one static test would test the rock cycle thirty lessons after it was taught; the hosted reasoning lessons sit right after the content lesson whose case they reason about; the five arrow colours for this course's own kinds (water flow, air flow, heat, plate motion, light) are set in arrow_palette.py and never borrow a physics colour.
The no-standard sweep (your 13 Oct ruling: "If no state requires it, then we shouldn't be including it")
The rule applied: an atom stays only if TEKS, Florida or Arizona names its content at grades 6–8, or NGSS names it inside the endpoint the kick-off set (MS-ESS1, MS-ESS2, MS-ESS3). Every atom's standards field was read; the full table is in records/ARCHITECTURE_CHECK_2026-10-15.txt, and build_tools_check_architecture.py fails if a placed atom has no qualifying code.
Cut (5 atoms, no code in any framework at grades 6–8):
| Atoms | What they taught | Why cut |
|---|---|---|
| EAR-030, 031, 032 | What soil is made of; how soil forms; soil horizons | No TEKS, Florida, Arizona or NGSS code at grades 6–8. Grade 3 teaches what soil is (EAR3-001 to 004); no middle-school standard returns to it. |
| SPA-045, 046 | A light-year is a distance; starlight shows the past | No code anywhere. Florida SC.8.E.5.1 (enormous distances; light and space travel) is carried by SPA-040 to 044. Reverses in one step if Florida's grade-8 specifications or a released form use "light-year" (the newton precedent, 13 Oct) — checked when the anchor set is fetched. |
Kept with a reason (atoms whose only code is a "pre-" code): EAR-001, 002, 003, 004, 006 (pre-6.10C: what a rock is made of and what a mineral is, before 6.10C's rock cycle); EAR-100, 101 (pre-6.11.B: what a natural resource is and the renewable sort, before 6.11B's conservation, efficiency and technology); EAR-102 (pre-6.11.A, added to the register today and logged: even a renewable resource runs short, which is why 6.11A's "resource management" is needed at all; EAR-107 depends on it); SPA-002, 003 (pre-7.9A: the night-sky stars are suns and the Sun is an ordinary one, before 7.9A's survey). No student has taken the grade 3–5 courses, so these are on-ramps, each a short lesson. Your call to overrule any of them is one line.
Kept because NGSS names it inside the endpoint and no state does: EAR-103 (MS-ESS3-1, why resources sit where they do), EAR-106 (MS-ESS3-5, why global temperatures are rising), EAR-112 (MS-ESS3-3, monitor the impact you want to shrink), EAR-113 and 114 (MS-ESS3-2, where hazards strike and which can be forecast; Arizona 8.E1U3.7 also names hazard prediction, so 113 and 114 are state-named too).
Kept because a state names it: every other atom carries a TEKS, Florida or Arizona code at grades 6–8.
Register findings from the sweep: Florida SC.6.E.7.1 (radiation, conduction and convection in Earth's system) and SC.8.E.5.11 (the spectrum and planetary images) are carried by no Earth or Space atom; MS Physics teaches both (its Topics 17 and 20), so this course retrieves them where Topic 8 needs heat transfer and Topic 20 needs star colour. Logged in the register's edit log, no atom added.
Card A — The strands and their order
The call: Earth → Space, each strand with a static test at its end and a third test at the solid-Earth seam; the third test overall is the end-of-course test.
| Strand | Topics | Lessons | Why it sits here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Earth | 1–12 | 64 (60 content + 4 reasoning) | The solid Earth first (rocks, the cycle, wearing down, reading history in layers, the moving plates, the hazards they cause); then the moving Earth (water, air and weather, climate); then people (resources, managing them, the marks we leave). Earth's history and plates need the rock cycle; climate needs weather; human impact needs climate. |
| Space | 13–21 | 49 (48 content + 1 reasoning) | Earth in space first (spin and tilt, then the Moon), because they are Earth-centred and TEKS grade 6; then the solar system's family, what holds it together, how big it is; then stars, galaxies and the universe, outward in scale. |
Total 113 lessons: 108 content + 5 hosted reasoning atoms.
Card B — The topics
The call: twenty-one topics of two to eight lessons, each with an intro video, a quiz after every lesson, a summary video with its attached questions, and a PP100 bank of six items per atom; no mixed practice. Atoms marked † are the hosted reasoning atoms (card 3).
| # | Topic (student-facing title) | Atoms (in teaching order) | Lessons | TEKS stamp | The big idea it serves |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Earth | |||||
| 1 | What rocks are made of | EAR-001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006 | 6 | pre-6.10C, 6.10C | Describe a rock by what you can see and feel; a mineral passes four tests; a rock is minerals packed together; a property test tells one mineral from another |
| 2 | The rock cycle | EAR-010, 011, 012, 013, 014, 015 | 6 | 6.10C | Three rock families you can sort by eye; how each forms (cooling, pressing and cementing, heat and pressure without melting); predict what a rock becomes; the cycle has more than one path |
| 3 | Weathering, erosion and deposition | EAR-020, 021, 022, 023, 024 | 5 | — (FL 6.E.6.1, AZ 7.E1U1.5) | Weathering breaks rock where it sits; physical or chemical; erosion carries the pieces away; sort an event into the three stages; what speeds weathering up |
| 4 | Reading Earth's history in rock layers and fossils | EAR-080, 081, 082, SR-003†, EAR-083, 084 | 6 | 7.10A, 6.3A | Lower is older; put layers in order; fossils are traces of past life; what you saw and what you inferred from it; match layers across places by their fossils; Earth is billions of years old |
| 5 | Earth's layers and the moving plates | EAR-050, 051, 052, SR-004†, EAR-053, 054 | 6 | 6.10B, 7.10A, 7.10B, 6.3A | Crust, mantle, core; the outer shell is cracked into plates that move; the evidence (fossils, coastlines, seafloor age, rock); the rival explanation and why the plates win; convergent, divergent, transform; what forms at each |
| 6 | Earthquakes, volcanoes and forecasting hazards | EAR-055, 113, 114, SR-082† | 4 | 7.10B | Why quakes and volcanoes cluster at boundaries; the next one strikes where the last ones did; which hazards give warning signs; a forecast can change and still be worth having |
| Earth | Checkpoint test 1 (three forms) — the solid Earth, Topics 1–6 | ||||
| 7 | The water cycle | EAR-040, 041, 042a, 042b, 043, 044 | 6 | — (FL 6.E.7.2, AZ 7.E1U1.5) | Name the steps; spot each in a diagram; the Sun's energy turns liquid water to vapour; gravity brings it back down and downhill; follow a drop round; the same water goes round again and again |
| 8 | The air and the weather | EAR-060a, 060b, 061, 065, 062, 063, 064 | 7 | 8.10A, 8.10B | What the air is made of; its layers; air has mass and pushes; the Sun heats the surface unevenly and sets the air moving; warm fronts and cold fronts; read a weather map; predict the weather a front brings |
| 9 | Weather or climate, and what sets a climate | EAR-070, SR-005†, EAR-071, 072, 073 | 5 | 6.2B, 6.4B | Weather, season or climate; one cold day against years of records; latitude, altitude and nearness to water; why a place has the climate it does; read a climate graph |
| 10 | Natural resources: renewable or not, and where they sit | EAR-100, 101, 102, 103, 104 | 5 | pre-6.11.B, pre-6.11.A | What a natural resource is; renewable or nonrenewable by replacement rate; a renewable one still runs short; past geologic processes put resources where they are; more people using more means more demand |
| 11 | Managing resources | EAR-107, 108, 109, 110, 111 | 5 | 6.11A, 6.11B | Why managing resources matters; conservation uses less; efficiency does the same job with less; technology cleans, recycles or replaces; sort a management move |
| 12 | The marks people leave, and how to check a fix | EAR-105, 106, 112 | 3 | — (FL 7.E.6.6, AZ 6.L2U3.11) | How deforestation, cities and rerouted water change land, air and water; why global temperatures are rising; choose how to monitor an impact so a fix can be checked |
| Earth | Checkpoint test 2 (three forms) — Earth, Topics 1–12 | ||||
| Space | |||||
| 13 | Earth's spin and Earth's tilt: day, night and the seasons | EAR-090, 094, SR-043† | 3 | 6.9A, 6.3A | Day and night come from Earth turning; seasons come from the tilted axis, not from distance; the explanation that fits every clue |
| 14 | The Moon: phases, tides and eclipses | EAR-091, 092, 093, 095, SPA-050, 051, 052 | 7 | 6.9B, pre-6.9A | The Moon shines by reflected sunlight; why it has phases; name and order them; the Moon's pull makes the tides; solar or lunar eclipse; why not every month; an eclipse is not a phase |
| 15 | Stars, planets and moons | SPA-001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008 | 8 | 7.9A, pre-7.9A | The Sun is a star; the night-sky stars are suns; the Sun is ordinary; Earth is a planet; there are others; our Moon orbits Earth; other planets have moons; sort a body by what it orbits and whether it shines |
| 16 | The planets and the dwarf planets | SPA-020, 021, 026, 022 | 4 | 7.9A | The Sun sits at the centre; name and order the eight planets; rocky planet or gas giant; a dwarf planet has not cleared its path |
| 17 | Asteroids, comets and meteors | SPA-023, 024, 025, 027, 028 | 5 | 7.9A | An asteroid; a comet and its tail; meteoroid, meteor or meteorite by where it is; the belts and the cloud they come from; sort any solar-system object |
| 18 | Gravity holds the solar system together | SPA-030, 031, 032, 033, 034, 035, 036 | 7 | 7.9B, 7.9C | Gravity reaches across space; the Sun's gravity keeps the planets on their orbits; an orbit is falling forward and being pulled inward; closer orbits faster; falling together feels weightless; astronauts are not beyond gravity; what lets Earth support life |
| 19 | How far away is everything? | SPA-040, 041, 042, 043, 044 | 5 | — (FL 8.E.5.1, AZ 6.E2U1.7) | Light takes time; how fast it goes; eight minutes from the Sun; the diagrams are not to scale; build a scale model of the distances |
| 20 | Stars: colour, brightness and life cycle | SPA-060, 061, 062, 063, 064, 065 | 6 | 8.9A | Stars differ; blue is hottest, red coolest; bright because near or bright because big; stars are born, shine and die; the Sun's life in order; a star's fate depends on its mass |
| 21 | Galaxies and the universe | SPA-070, 071, 072, 073 | 4 | 8.9B, 8.9C | Solar system, galaxy, universe in order; the Sun is one of billions in the Milky Way, off to one side; the universe is expanding; the Big Bang is the leading account of how it began |
| Space | Checkpoint test 3 (three forms) — the whole course; also the end-of-course test |
Totals: 113 lessons in 21 topics (108 content + 5 reasoning); 21 PP100 banks; 3 checkpoint tests of three forms each (after Topics 6, 12 and 21), the third also the end-of-course test.
Cut on James's ruling (13 October, the no-standard sweep, applied 15 October): EAR-030, EAR-031, EAR-032, SPA-045, SPA-046.
Why this grouping
- Every prerequisite edge points backwards in this order, or into grades 3 to 5, or into a sibling course's strand (Card D). Checked atom by atom today (
records/ARCHITECTURE_CHECK_2026-10-15.txt); zero forward references. The cut atoms are prerequisites of nothing that remains. - Topic 1 is its own topic because 6.10C's rock cycle (Topic 2) cannot be taught before a student can describe a rock and knows a rock is minerals; the five pre-6.10C atoms are the on-ramp.
- Earth's history (Topic 4) comes before the plates (Topic 5) because the plate-evidence lesson reads matching fossils and rock across oceans, which needs "fossils are evidence" and "match layers by fossils" first; and the hazards topic (6) follows the boundaries that cause them.
- The water cycle (7) opens the moving-Earth run because the weather topic's humidity and fronts lean on water vapour; climate (9) needs the fronts' weather (EAR-070's prerequisite is EAR-064).
- Resources split in three: what they are and where they sit (10), managing them (11, the TEKS 6.11 cluster), and the marks people leave with the capstone monitoring atom (12), because EAR-106 needs climate (Topic 9) and EAR-112 needs both the impacts and the management sort.
- Space opens on Earth itself (13, 14) because EAR-090 to 095 are TEKS grade 6 and Earth-centred; the eclipses sit with the phases they are confused with (SPA-052's own behaviour). The solar-system family (15, 16, 17) precedes gravity (18) so "what the Sun holds" is known before "how it holds it"; scale (19) needs the planets' order; stars (20) and galaxies (21) go outward.
- Topic 15 lists eight atoms, several of them one-line Grade 3 re-entries (the Sun is a star; Earth is a planet; our Moon orbits Earth). Its author decides and records which pairs share one lesson (your Topic 1 pattern in MS Physics: a sort that is obvious on its own rides inside the next lesson); the register is not merged, the bank still holds six items per atom.
What changes: the folder gets topicNN_build/ per topic as each is built; Topics 2, 9 and 13 are briefed first (card 4), one agent per topic, no blueprint, at most two agents at once.
Card C — Where the five reasoning atoms sit (card 3)
| SR atom | Host topic | The investigation |
|---|---|---|
| SR-003 An inference goes beyond what you saw | 4 | a fish fossil on a hillside: the fossil is what you see; "this was a sea" is the inference |
| SR-004 More than one explanation can fit | 5 | the same fossil on two continents: a land bridge that sank, or the continents moved; what the seafloor's age decides |
| SR-082 Provisional is not the same as worthless | 6 | a volcano's swelling and quakes: a forecast that can change as new readings arrive, and is still acted on |
| SR-005 Stronger and weaker evidence | 9 | one cold day in Austin against thirty years of January records: which supports a claim about the climate |
| SR-043 The best explanation for the clues | 13 | tilt or distance: only the tilt explains opposite seasons in the two hemispheres and the Sun higher in summer |
Card D — What is taught elsewhere and retrieved here
The call: the prerequisite atoms that live in other courses are not taught here. Each lesson that leans on one states the idea in a sentence and asks one recall item before using it (the stand-alone entry rule: no student has taken the grade 3–5 courses or the sibling middle-school courses yet).
| Topic | Leans on (other courses' atoms) |
|---|---|
| 1 | EAR4-001 describe a rock like a geologist; EAR4-002 rocks are made of minerals; EAR4-003 test a mineral; MAT-045 a compound (MS Chemistry: a mineral has a fixed make-up) |
| 2 | EAR4-005 sort a rock into its family; EAR4-008, 010, 012 how each family forms; EAR5-035 how sediment becomes stone |
| 3 | EAR4-020 to 025 weathering, what does the breaking, erosion, what carries, deposition, the three-way sort; ENE-021 heat flows hot to cold (MS Physics) |
| 4 | EAR4-035 deeper means older; EAR4-036 put the layers in time order; EAR3-030, 032 what a fossil is and what it shows; SR-002 observation or interpretation (Scientific Reasoning) |
| 5 | EAR4-045 the crust; EAR4-026 read Earth's features from a map; SR-003 (taught in Topic 4) |
| 6 | EAR3-010 volcanoes change the land fast; EAR4-046 seismic waves spread the shaking; SR-081 evidence can change the answer (MS Physics Topic 16) |
| 7 | EAR4-055 put the water cycle in order; EAR4-056 the Sun's energy drives the cycle; EAR4-057 predict the drop's next step; ENE-021 (MS Physics); FOR-013 Earth's pull, the object's weight (MS Physics) |
| 8 | EAR5-010 humidity; EAR5-011 air pressure; EAR5-004 ocean air shapes the weather; ENE-021 (MS Physics) |
| 9 | EAR4-071 weather or climate; EAR5-016 spot the climate-maker; EAR5-017 describe a climate zone; SR-003 (Topic 4) |
| 10 | EAR3-040 the resource behind a product; EAR4-090, 091 renewable means nature keeps up, the sort; EAR5-036 how fossil fuels form |
| 11 | EAR3-042 say why conserving matters; EAR3-043 reduce, reuse or recycle |
| 12 | EAR4-092 using resources leaves a mark; EAR5-046 design the fix |
| 13 | MOT-002 moving or still, compared to a reference point (MS Physics); SPA5-005 the spin moves the Sun across our sky; SPA4-004 predict the next step in a seasonal pattern; SR-004, SR-005 (Topics 5 and 9) |
| 14 | SPA4-022, 023 order the Moon's shapes, predict the next; SPA4-024 why the Moon's shape seems to change |
| 15 | SPA3-001, 007 what the Sun is, the Sun is a star; SPA3-012, 013 Earth is one of the planets, order the planets; SPA5-020, 031, 033 the Earth–Moon model, why the Sun outshines the stars, the Milky Way |
| 18 | FOR-013, FOR-002 (MS Physics: Earth's pull; a force changes motion) |
| 20 | ENE-033, 034, 036 the electromagnetic spectrum (MS Physics Topic 20) |
The full lean list, atom by atom, is in the check record.
Card E — Tests and benchmarks
The call: a PP100 bank per topic (six items per atom, drawn from); a static checkpoint test of three forms after Topic 6 (the solid Earth), Topic 12 (Earth) and Topic 21 (the whole course, also the end-of-course test), anchored to the released grade-8 forms (card 2). Every test item is written fresh for the test, a non-author examiner re-performs the freshness claim on scenes, and every form is read cold with keys hidden.
- Topics carrying the heaviest tested content, from the state codes on their atoms: Topic 5 the plates (TEKS 7.10A/B, Florida 7.E.6.1 to 6.5, Arizona 7.E1U1.6); Topic 2 the rock cycle (6.10C, Florida 6.E.6.2, 7.E.6.2); Topic 14 the Moon (6.9B, Florida 8.E.5.9, Arizona 6.E2U1.9); Topics 15 to 17 the solar system (7.9A, Florida 8.E.5.3); Topic 18 gravity (7.9B, Florida 8.E.5.4); Topic 8 weather (8.10A/B, Florida 6.E.7.3/.5); Topic 20 stars (8.9A, Florida 8.E.5.5). The per-topic counts are in the check record.
- Anchor set (card 2): STAAR grade 8 science 2022 (PDF) plus the 2023–2025 online released forms, Florida's grade 8 Statewide Science Assessment item specifications and sample test, the AzSCI grade 8 sample test and scoring guide. Fetched when the first checkpoint is authored; only the Earth and Space reporting categories are ours.
- The end-of-course test is cumulative over both strands, as the grade-8 forms are cumulative over grades 6 to 8.
Card F — Register observations, one edit made and logged
- EAR-102 carried no code at all while EAR-107 (TEKS 6.11A) depends on it; it now carries pre-6.11.A (edit log, 15 October). The soil atoms and the light-year atoms stay in the register as findings (blanks are findings, never gaps to fill).
- EAR-040 "Name the steps of the water cycle" re-enters Grade 4's EAR4-055 with the same name; the register's own cross note says the lesson must stand alone as a brief teach. Kept as the topic's opener, as ruled on 25 Sep.
- EAR-070 "Weather or climate?" re-enters Grade 4's EAR4-071 the same way; Topic 9's first lesson teaches the three-way contrast (weather, season, climate) you asked for at Grade 4, so it is not a bare repeat.
- EAR-092 and EAR-093 (why the Moon has phases; name and order them) re-enter Grade 4's SPA4-022 to 024, which already give the "why" at Grade 4 on your 25 Sep ruling. The middle-school statement adds the orbit geometry (how much of the sunlit side faces Earth); the Grade 4 lines are recalled.
- EAR-053 and EAR-054 (sort a boundary; what forms there) are a sort with no definition atom per class before it (JM-P1b); the lesson defines convergent, divergent and transform by cases as it sorts, as MS Physics did for ENE-006.
- SPA-021 "Name the eight planets and put them in order" carries an "and"; one lesson, two items.
- SPA-061 leans on MS Physics's spectrum atoms for "blue is hottest, red coolest"; at this band the lesson states the colour-temperature rule and retrieves the spectrum in one line.
- SPA-034 and SPA-035 (weightlessness) carry only Arizona codes; kept as state-named, and they confront the belief that gravity stops in space (SPA-035's own behaviour).
- Florida SC.6.E.7.1 and SC.8.E.5.11 are carried by no Earth or Space atom (MS Physics teaches both); recorded in the edit log for the register owners.
Checks run (15 October 2026, build_tools_check_architecture.py, output in records/ARCHITECTURE_CHECK_2026-10-15.txt)
- Atoms placed: 108 content atoms + 5 reasoning = 113; 5 atoms listed as cut on James's ruling. Every remaining register atom appears in exactly one topic; none is left over; none is doubled; no cut atom is a prerequisite of a placed one.
- Prerequisites: every prerequisite of every placed atom sits in an earlier topic, earlier in the same topic, in grades 3 to 5, or in a sibling course's strand (listed as leans). Zero forward references.
- The no-standard sweep: zero placed atoms without a qualifying code; the ten pre-code atoms and the five NGSS-only atoms print as KEPT lines.
- Topic sizes: largest 8 (Topic 15), smallest 3 (Topics 12 and 13).
- Standards coverage: every TEKS, Florida and Arizona code the two registers carry is still carried by a placed atom after the cuts.
About this build (kickoff record)
- Register:
Science Knowledge Graph/data/atoms/06-08/earth-science.json,space-science.json, pulled 15 October 2026;scientific-reasoning.jsonfor the hosted atoms. Per-course choices are the register's: K–8 letter-suffixed ids with gaps left for insertion; Fact / Categorical / Transformation / Routine; bare behaviours; verdict and reason split by default; frameworks TEKS, NGSS, Florida, Arizona. - Endpoint: the grade-8 STAAR, Florida SSA and AzSCI Earth and Space items; NGSS MS-ESS1-1 to 4, MS-ESS2-1 to 6, MS-ESS3-1 to 5 (the kick-off's endpoint), with MS-PS2-4 where the gravity atoms carry it.
- Sources read: the kick-off notes; the vault's CLAUDE.md, 00 Protocol, the ExplAIn Yourself principles, the PP100, video, summary and article decisions and the rules they name; the knowledge graph's HANDOFF, CLAUDE and decisions files and the two registers; MS Physics's CLAUDE.md, architecture, authoring brief, tools and its Topic 5 chain end to end; the Grade 5 session start, architecture, brief and systemic-issues records; James's Grade 3 Earth and Space feedback (30 Sep) and his Grade 4–5 rulings of 7 and 9 October; the Grade 3–5 Earth and Space registers and every Earth and Space topic lexicon in Grades 3–5. Nothing from any sibling course's lesson text.
What happens next
The folder gets topicNN_build/ for Topics 2, 9 and 13 now, one agent per topic from records/AUTHORING_BRIEF_MSEAS.md, at most two at once: scripts, quizzes, the summary, the PP100 bank with its type sheet, the full gate chain to 0 FAIL, a non-author review, a blind read, then the three topics on the flat scripts page for your read. The rest of the course waits for that read. The first video batch waits for your word before it leaves the machine.