High school courses in earth sciences will be the first experience for many students in using physical evidence to consider models of stellar life cycles and the history of the universe. Students in earlier grades should have observed the patterns of stars in the sky and learned that the Sun is an average star located in the Milky Way galaxy. Students should also have been introduced to astronomical units (AUs), which measure distances between solar system objects such as Earth and Jupiter. Students should know that distances between stars, and also between galaxies, are measured in parsecs. The parsec is the distance at which one astronomical unit subtends one second of arc. This distance is about 3.26 light-years.

The concepts dealt with in this standard set are not a part of students' daily experience. As in the previous standard set, students may need help to internalize the distance and time scales used to describe the universe. In addition, misconceptions derived from outdated hypotheses or from science fiction movies, books, and videos may interfere with developing an understanding of accepted scientific evidence. To promote scientific literacy, school libraries should try to keep their collections up to date. Students can benefit from the significant amount of new data gained from space exploration during the past 20 years.