These texts are excellent vehicles to achieve the four goals of this course: learning about earth science; learning how to do research, so that a student becomes an active user of texts rather than a passive, just turn the next page, user; learning how to write a technical essay; and learning how to order items according to their logical relationship. These twelve teaching units delve into the basic concepts of planetary and astronomical sciences. Students will study and compare the objects in our solar system, including the eight planets and ever-popular Pluto. The units are introduced by color transparencies with discussion questions and reinforced by activities and 20 reproducible student pages.