Introduction to Middle school Earth and space science | Khan Academy

• Hi everyone. Sal Khan here and I'm with Iman Howard, who is our manager for all of our STEM content on Khan Academy. And we wanted to welcome you to the Middle School Earth and Space Sciences course. Iman, why should folks be excited about this?

• So Middle School Earth and Space Science is really exciting because it's one of those areas of science that answers what's happening in our universe. And then, like when you dig in, you're like, "What is happening in our universe? This is why we have seasons." And so we start like really big, we go all the way to outer space and we figure out sort of Earth’s position in our solar system and the relationship to gravity and our inner planets and our outer planets.

And then we keep digging in and we finally figure out how Earth's position answers seasons. It's not because we get closer to the sun or how based on Earth’s position, we look up at the moon and you'll see a lunar eclipse, or how you don’t look up and look at a solar eclipse, like seriously, don’t look up because it'll hurt your corneas. And then we keep going and we talk about water and how the same water that you're drinking right now is the exact same water that dinosaurs drank.

And then we get into the rock cycle and we figure out why mountains are here and how we're moving right now. Literally, the plates below us are moving and how at one point we could walk across all the way from the US to Africa and how plate tectonics really changed that. And then finally, finally, we talk about us. We talk about us on this planet and how there's so many amazing resources here and how we use them really impacts the earth and how that could impact our climate.

And really awesome things that you can do as a learner to change all that and make this earth really awesome. What are you excited about, Sal?

• Well, I'll just double down on everything you said, and I like how you said we're gonna dig into it 'cause it's a very appropriate pun for earth, earth and space. This starts to answer the questions from the cosmos to earth. Over billions of years, as you mentioned, the earth is alive in certain ways with the plates still moving; it's active, and we should say at least, and you know we are part of the earth.

Your point, the water in our bodies, the air that we breathe, it's the same water and earth that has been here and the air for billions and billions of years. So to be able to actually understand that, it actually gives me goosebumps. So I think folks will be very excited about this course.

• Absolutely. (upbeat music)