Pacing Guide

144 instructional days. Six modules. Six anchor projects. This is the real plan, laid on the real 2026–27 Beta Academy calendar — not a generic thirty-six-week outline. Every date below comes from the same file the studio schedules from.

How this plan was built · project-anchored, honestly condensed

The adopted publisher pacing runs 180 periods across 24 modules. The Beta four-day calendar provides 144 instructional days. Teaching the publisher plan as written is arithmetically impossible, so the course was re-cut on two deliberate levers.

One: the overhead came out. Every publisher module spends a standalone “Module Launch” and “Module Close” period — 48 periods, better than a quarter of the course, spent on framing rather than content. Those fold into the first and last lesson of each module.

Two: projects compress instructional allocations; they do not add a second layer. Each of the six modules carries one anchor project. Project work folds a varying amount of planned direct instruction into production; it is not a one-project-day-for-one-lecture-day exchange. Published slide resources support both direct instruction and project work; resource availability does not set the day budget.

Say it plainly: this course is adapted and condensed from the publisher pacing. 40 planned direct-instruction days are compressed into project work across the year, and 48 framing periods were recovered. Publisher module and verified lesson order stay canonical; daily allocations are the Studio's local pacing decisions, not claims about publisher lesson count or automatic standards mastery.

The day budget

Direct instruction Project Assessment Flex / review Flex days are reteach, makeup, and project overflow.

Loading the 2026–27 plan…

The six modules

This page needs JavaScript. The day-by-day plan is rendered from the studio's scheduling file, so with scripting turned off the module cards below cannot be drawn. The same six modules, their date windows, day counts, and anchor projects are listed in the Course Syllabus itinerary, and campus dates are on the studio calendar.

Calendar shape. The instructional week runs Monday through Thursday, with six makeup Fridays across the year. That is where the 144 comes from: 30 Mondays, 36 Tuesdays, 36 Wednesdays, 36 Thursdays, and 6 Fridays. Campus-calendar changes are published on the studio calendar and this guide is regenerated from the same source.

Standards note. This course is taught to TEKS §112.49 Earth Systems Science (the current standard, organized around interactions of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, and biosphere). Module 6's stellar and galactic chapters extend beyond §112.49 into astronomy territory and are taught as clearly-labeled capstone enrichment. There is no STAAR EOC for this course.

Prerequisite flow. The Sun-Earth energy stream and seasonal geometry get a short primer in Module 1 (and again opening Module 3) rather than waiting for Module 6 — the fluid-Earth modules need that footing early. When Climate needs an ocean-circulation prerequisite, it appears as a short refresher; the canonical publisher sequence remains Atmosphere, Meteorology, Storms, Climate, then Earth's Oceans.

Everything is submitted digitally. Projects, lab work, and module assessments are turned in through the Assessment Center. Nothing in this course depends on a paper hand-in.