SCIENCE: Units of Study / Essential Questions

Current Unit of Study:

Earth Inside Out

Current Standards:

  • ESS2. Earth’s Systems 8.MS-ESS2-1. Use a model to illustrate that energy from Earth’s interior drives convection that cycles Earth’s crust, leading to melting, crystallization, weathering, and deformation of large rock formations, including generation of ocean sea floor at ridges, submergence of ocean sea floor at trenches, mountain building, and active volcanic chains.

  • MS-PS4-1. Use diagrams of a simple wave to explain that (a) a wave has a repeating pattern with a specific amplitude, frequency, and wavelength, and (b) the amplitude of a wave is related to the energy of the wave



Essential Questions

This course has five essential questions that are based on the big ideas of Earth Science that all citizens should know and the Massachusetts Science and Technology Curriculum Frameworks for Earth Science.

1. How has the Earth System changed over geological time?

2. How does energy from the Sun and from inside the Earth drive the processes that change the Earth?

3. How do we use models to understand processes in Earth Science?

4. How do the processes that change the Earth affect our lives?

5. How do the actions of human beings affect the Earth?

We will be investigating and exploring these questions through our units of study.


1st Trimester:

- Physical Science Review: Properties of Matter and Density

- Earth Inside Out

- Plate Tectonics Journey - Development of a Theory

- Build an Earthquake House


- All About Carbon

- Energy from the Sun

- Reasons for the Seasons

- The Ocean & Atmosphere Connection

- Our Changing Climate

-Earth Through Time

- Cape Cod, The Geologic Study