Geology

Ask and answer questions about igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks or metamorphic rocks in a class discussion.

Bring a rock to class and be prepared to explain which kind of rock it is.

Create a demonstration that explains weathering. Tell the class how your demonstration is an example of weathering and relate it to “real or actual” weathering.

Create a demonstration that explains weathering. Tell the class how your demonstration is an example of weathering and relate it to “real or actual” weathering.

Count rocks of different types.

Find information about an earthquake and how long the shaking lasted. Demonstrate the duration using a stopwatch.

Compare the layers of the earth. Write equations showing the difference between the depth of the layers of the earth. Solve and label your answers.

Compare the layers of the earth. Write equations showing the difference between the depth of the layers of the earth. Solve and label your answers.

Living things need water, air, and resources from the land. They live in places that have the things they need.

Sunlight warms Earth's surface.

Examples of Earth's surface could include sand, soil and rocks.

Wind and water can change the shape of the land.

Because there is always more than one possible solution to a problem, it is useful to compare and test designs.

Some Earth events happen very quickly; others occur very slowly, over a time period much longer than one can observe.

Examples of events and timescales could include volcanic explosions and earthquakes, which happen quickly, and erosion of rocks, which occurs slowly.

Energy and fuels that are modified from natural sources affect the environment in multiple ways. Some resources are renewable over time and others are not.

The locations of mountain ranges, ocean trenches, earthquakes, and volcanoes occur in patterns. Most earthquakes and volcanoes occur in bands that are often along the boundaries between continents and oceans. Major mountain chains form inside continents or near their edges. Maps can help locate the different land and water feature areas of Earth.

Maps can include topographic maps of Earth's land and ocean floor, as well as maps of the locations of mountains, continental boundaries, volcanoes, and earthquakes.

Rainfall helps to shape the land and affects the types of living things found in a region. Water, ice, wind, living organisms, and gravity break rocks, soils, and sediments into smaller particles and move them around.

Examples of variables to test could include angle of slope in the downhill movement of water, amount of vegetation, relative rate of deposition, cycles of freezing and thawing of water, cycles of heating and cooling, and volume of water flow.

Local, regional, and global patterns of rock formations reveal changes over time due to earth forces, such as earthquakes. The presence and location of certain fossil types indicate the order in which rock layers were formed.

Examples of evidence from patterns could include rock layers with marine shell fossils above rock layers with plant fossils and no shells, indicating a change from land to water over time; and a canyon with different rock layers in the walls and a river in the bottom, indicating that over time a river through rock.

Earth's major systems are the geosphere (solid and molten rock, soil, and sediments), the hydrosphere (water and ice), the atmosphere (air), and the biosphere (living things, including humans). These systems interact in multiple ways to affect Earth's surface materials and processes.

Examples of evidence include grade-appropriate databases on human populations and the rates of consumption of food and natural resources (such as freshwater, mineral, and energy). Examples of effects can include changes made to the appearance, composition, and structure of Earth’s systems as well as the rates at which they change.

Humans depend on Earth's land, ocean, atmosphere, and biosphere for many different resources.

Emphasis is on how these resources are limited and typically non-renewable, and how their distributions are changing as a result of depletion. Examples of uneven distributions of resources as a result of past processes include but are not limited to petroleum (locations of the burial of organic marine sediments and subsequent geologic traps), metal ores (locations of past volcanic and hydrothermal activity associated with subduction zones), and soil (locations of active weathering and/or deposition of rock).

Maps of ancient land and water patterns, based on investigations of rocks and fossils, make clear how Earth's plates have moved great distances, collided, and spread apart. Examples of data include similarities of rock and fossil types on different continents, the shapes of the continents, and the locations of ocean structures.

The planet's systems interact over scales that range from microscopic to global in size, and they operate over fractions of a second to billions of years. These interactions have shaped Earth’s history and will determine its future.

Emphasis is on how processes change Earth’s surface at time and spatial scales that can be large (such as slow plate motions or the uplift of large mountain ranges) or small (such as rapid landslides or microscopic geochemical reactions), and how geoscience processes (such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and meteor impacts) usually behave gradually but are punctuated by catastrophic events. Examples of geoscience processes include surface weathering and deposition by the movements of water, ice, and wind. Emphasis is on geoscience processes that shape local geographic features, where appropriate.

All Earth processes are the result of energy flowing and matter cycling within and among the planet's system. This energy is derived from the sun and Earth's hot interior. Emphasis is on the processes of melting, crystallization, weathering, deformation, and sedimentation, which act together to form minerals and rocks through the cycling of Earth's materials.

The geologic time scale interpreted from rock strata provides a way to organize Earth's history.

Emphasis is on how analyses of rock formations and the fossils they contain are used to establish relative ages of major events in Earth's history.

Emphasis is on finding patterns of changes in the level of complexity and the chronological order of fossil appearance in the rock layers.