D857 Secondary Earth Science Curriculum, catalog number EDUC 3305, is the three-CU undergraduate licensure course that pulls the Earth science content courses together and asks what a secondary course built from them should look like. It behaves differently from the content courses that precede it. Nobody is checking whether you can define a mineral; they are checking whether you can decide what belongs in a year of Earth science, in what order, and defend the decision against standards.
From knowing content to deciding what to teach
The shift in this course is one of altitude. Content courses ask what is true. A curriculum course asks what is worth the six weeks you have, which is a different and harder question. Earth science has more material than any school year can hold: plate tectonics, minerals and rocks, surface processes, oceans, atmosphere, climate systems, astronomy and the history of the planet. Deciding what to cut is the professional skill being assessed, and it is only defensible when it is tied to standards and to how ideas depend on one another.
Dependency is the organising tool. Plate tectonics explains earthquake and volcano distribution, mountain building, the rock cycle's tectonic drivers and much of ocean basin structure, so it belongs early because so much else leans on it. Deep time has to come before any unit that requires students to accept slow processes producing large results. Energy transfer underlies weather, ocean circulation and climate alike. A sequence built from dependencies reads as reasoned; a sequence built from a textbook's table of contents reads as borrowed.
The third demand is three-dimensional thinking, which secondary science standards now assume. Content sits alongside science and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts, and a curriculum document that lists only topics has answered one dimension of three. Where an aspect mentions practices, phenomena or crosscutting ideas, it wants to see students doing science with the content rather than receiving it.
Planning the work from your Course of Study
Open your Course of Study before you begin. The scoring detail is there rather than in the catalog, and a curriculum course may be assessed by submitted work, by a proctored objective assessment or by both. Where written work is scored, each aspect stands alone and needs a 2. Where an exam is part of the plan, coverage across the Earth systems domains matters more than depth in the one you enjoy.
The word budget, worked. Take six scored aspects and directions asking for about 2,000 words. Reserve 140 for describing the course you are designing and its context and 110 for a close, leaving roughly 1,750, or 290 an aspect. Then move 60 words from each descriptive aspect into whichever aspect asks for rationale, because the reasoning behind a sequence is what is scored and the contents list is what students supply instead.
The study budget, worked. As a three-CU undergraduate course it carries more content review than its two-CU graduate counterpart. Assume fifty hours: fifteen on standards and curriculum design principles, twenty-five distributed across the content domains weighted toward your weakest, and ten on assembling and defending the document itself. Diagnose before you distribute, because most candidates guess their weak domain wrongly.
A structure that fits an Earth science curriculum document
Follow the directions' template where one exists. Where the arrangement is yours, this order covers what curriculum aspects usually ask for.
| Section | What belongs in it | What earns the aspect |
|---|---|---|
| Course context | Grade, length, prior science courses and the framework you answer to | Sets the constraints every later choice is judged against |
| Standards map | Which standards each unit addresses, with codes | Scored for coverage; silent gaps are visible to an evaluator |
| Unit sequence | Units in order with approximate time and the dependency logic | Scored for the reasoning behind the order |
| Anchoring phenomena | The observable events each unit is built around | Scored where three-dimensional design is named; a phenomenon is not a topic |
| Practices progression | Where modelling, data analysis and argument are introduced and revisited | Scored for building capability rather than repeating activities |
| Assessment plan | Formative and summative evidence across the course | Scored for distribution and for matching the standards claimed |
| Resources and safety | Materials, field or laboratory work and the safety implications of each | Scored where materials or safety are named |
| Rationale | Why this order and these emphases for these students | The aspect that decides whether this is curriculum or a contents page |
Write the document for a colleague who knows Earth science but not your intentions. If they could teach the year from it without asking you a question, it is finished. Until then, every place they would have to ask is a place an evaluator will read as a gap in the plan rather than as a detail you left flexible.
Evidence craft in curriculum work
Curriculum arguments need external authority, or they read as preference arranged under headings.
- Cite standards by code and quote the performance expectation rather than paraphrasing it.
- Support design choices with published guidance on science teaching, including work on phenomena-driven instruction and on student misconceptions in Earth science.
- Anchor content claims to reliable sources, particularly for anything involving measurement of the planet or of climate.
- Attribute any existing curriculum or unit you adapt. Curriculum materials have authors and licences.
- Where you cite data for students to use, check that it is accessible at the reading and mathematical level of the grade.
- Use APA where directions require it, including for framework documents.
- Check the currency of any Earth system data you plan to hand students, since figures on ice extent, sea level and atmospheric composition are revised annually and a stale number teaches a stale idea.
Misconceptions deserve their own paragraph somewhere in the document. Seasons, the causes of moon phases, the timescale of rock formation and the distinction between weather and climate are the four that arrive with nearly every class, and a curriculum that plans for them explicitly is doing something a topic list cannot.
What separates Competent from work sent back
Each aspect scores on its own, and returns usually name a sequence with no stated logic or a document with no practices dimension.
- Standards coverage is complete and mapped by code.
- Sequence follows a dependency argument you state.
- Units are anchored in phenomena rather than in topic names.
- Practices and crosscutting concepts appear and progress.
- Assessment is distributed and matched to the standards claimed.
- Safety is addressed for any field or laboratory work included.
Performance assessment work can be revised and resubmitted without a grade penalty, so the cost of a return is time in a six-month flat-rate term. Where a proctored objective assessment is involved we prepare only, never sit it and never ask for portal credentials, and we never teach lessons, contact schools or complete field placement paperwork on your behalf.
Six mistakes that cost time in D857
- Sequencing by textbook order. A borrowed contents page is not a rationale, and evaluators recognise it instantly.
- Covering everything. A year has limits; the defensible cut is the skill being assessed.
- Listing topics as phenomena. A phenomenon is something observable that raises a question, not a chapter heading with a question mark.
- Leaving practices implicit. Standards name them explicitly, so a document that does not is incomplete against the framework.
- Ignoring known misconceptions. Planning for them is cheap and is exactly what distinguishes a teacher's document from a student's summary.
- Studying content evenly. Diagnose first; most candidates are strong in two domains and thin in two, and even study wastes half the hours.
How support works on this course
Send the task directions and the scoring detail from your Course of Study. What comes back is a standards map with codes, a unit sequence built on dependencies you can defend, anchoring phenomena for each unit, a practices progression that actually progresses, and a rationale section that explains the order rather than restating it.
If content review is also part of your plan, we run a diagnostic across the Earth systems domains first and weight the hours toward the two that come back weakest, which is usually not where candidates expect.
Time allocation inside the document deserves a second look as well. Candidates habitually give astronomy a fortnight and plate tectonics a month because that matches their own comfort, then find that the framework weights them the other way. Working out the proportions from the performance expectations first, then writing the unit descriptions to fit, prevents the most common structural revision and makes the rationale section easier to write because the reasoning already exists.
Questions students ask about D857
Is D857 the same course as EDUC 3305?
How is D857 different from D858?
Do I need to have finished the Earth science content courses first?
Curriculum document due and the sequence has no argument?
Send your task directions and framework. You get a standards map with codes, a dependency-driven sequence and anchoring phenomena for every unit.
Where D857 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 3 current WGU programs. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.