Daily Agenda: Unit 2

Earth Processes

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS --- These are the important questions you will be able to answer by the end of the unit!

• Why do we have uneven distribution of minerals and rocks on Earth?
• How do rocks and minerals affect the average person in their everyday lives?
• Where do rocks come from and why are they all not the same?
• How can we use Earth changes to predict past and future events?
• How have geologic processes changed Earth’s surface?
  • Long-term and rapid changes
• What proof do we have of tectonic plate movement?

Performance Tasks:

• MS-ESS2-1. Develop a model to describe the cycling of Earth's materials and the flow of energy that drives this process.
• MS-ESS3-1. Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how the uneven distributions of Earth's mineral, energy, and groundwater resources are the result of past and current geoscience processes.
• MS-ESS1-4. Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence from rock strata for how the geologic time scale is used to organize Earth's 4.6-billion-year-old history.
• MS-ESS2-2. Construct an explanation based on evidence for how geoscience processes have changed Earth's surface at varying time and spatial scales.
• MS-ESS2-3. Analyze and interpret data on the distribution of fossils and rocks, continental shapes, and seafloor structures to provide evidence of the past plate motions.

UNIT OUTLINE

COMMON AND OTHER ASSESSMENTS

• Personal Vocabulary Dictionary
• Crystal Formation Lab
• Mineral Use Mini-Project
• Rock Webquest
• Rock Alternative (RAFT) - MS-ESS2-1
• Rock and Rock Cycle Quiz
• Mass Extinction Essay
• Dating Rocks Comic or Future Fossil Mini-Project - MS-ESS1-4
• Continental Drift Essay MS-ESS2-3
• Plate Motion Mini-Project
• Tectonic Region Case Study - MS-ESS2-2, MS-ESS3-1
• Plate Tectonics Test

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