Differentiate Between Earth's Spheres Activities for Middle School Science

The Kesler Science Differentiate Between Earth’s Spheres 5E Lesson is a comprehensive Earth science unit designed for middle school students to differentiate between the biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and geosphere while identifying their components. This fully editable, low-prep lesson includes presentations, worksheets, choice projects, and assessments, supporting differentiated, student-led learning.

Aligned with TEKS 6.10A, the lesson follows the 5E Model. The engagement phase features objectives, word wall cards, and discussion activities. Exploration includes a hands-on, differentiated station lab with nine stations, where students engage through experiments, readings, research, videos, and interactive categorization. Explanation provides editable PowerPoints, interactive notebooks, and note-taking templates in English and Spanish. Elaboration extends learning with student-choice projects, while evaluation includes STAAR 2.0-aligned assessments, review questions, and worksheets.

This flexible lesson is available in printable and digital formats, supports multimodal learning, and includes Spanish translations. Ideal for both in-class and virtual learning, it ensures students actively explore Earth’s spheres and their interconnections.

Engage your students with this modular, student-led station lab aligned with the 2021 TEKS 6.10A standard. Designed for in-class or virtual learning, this lesson helps students differentiate between the biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and geosphere while identifying components of each system through nine interactive stations.

Students explore concepts through videos, readings, research, and hands-on tasks. They demonstrate their learning by organizing information, illustrating models, writing responses, and completing assessments. A bonus challenge station offers extension activities, and English and Spanish reading passages support differentiated learning. This low-prep, high-engagement resource fosters independent learning and critical thinking.

The Differentiate Between Earth’s Spheres Student Choice Projects align with the 2021 TEKS standard 6.10A, allowing middle school students to choose a project that fits their preferred output style. A project page outlines six student-led options plus a “design your own” project, all with an editable rubric for teacher, peer, or self-assessment. This resource is also included in the Differentiate Between Earth’s Spheres Complete Lesson for TEKS 6.10A.  

These flexible, multimodal projects provide creative ways for students to demonstrate their understanding. Teachers can adjust the rubric to fit grading needs, and two versions of the project page support differentiation. The modified version includes three options designed for students needing remediation, while advanced learners can be assigned a combination of projects using the same rubric.  

The projects use standard classroom supplies like paper, markers, and scissors, and many options can be completed digitally.