Soils, Rocks and Landforms
Students gain firsthand experiences with soils and rocks and modeling experiences using tools such as topographic maps and stream tables to study changes to rocks and landforms at Earth’s surface. This module focuses on the concepts that weathering by water, ice, wind, living organisms, and gravity breaks rocks into smaller pieces, erosion (water, ice, and wind) transports earth materials to new locations, and deposition is the result of that transport process that builds new land. They work through the engineering design process, focusing on developing solutions by building, testing, wind powered cars to explore renewable resources.
Curriculum Map
Unit:Soils, Rocks and Landforms
State Standards
4-ESS1-1. Use evidence from a given landscape that includes simple landforms and rock layers to support a claim about the role of erosion or deposition in the formation of the landscape over long periods of time.
4-ESS2-1. Make observations and collect data to provide evidence that rocks, soils, and sediments are broken into smaller pieces through mechanical weathering and moved around through erosion.
4-ESS2-2. Analyze and interpret maps of Earth’s mountain ranges, deep ocean trenches, volcanoes, and earthquake epicenters to describe patterns of these features and their locations relative to boundaries between continents and oceans.
4-ESS3-1. Obtain information to describe that energy and fuels humans use are derived from natural resources and that some energy and fuel sources are renewable and some are not.
4-ESS3-2. Evaluate different solutions to reduce the impacts of a natural event such as an earthquake, blizzard, or flood on humans.
Essential Questions
What causes big rocks to break down into smaller rocks?
How does slope and floods affect erosion and deposition?
How do fossils get in rocks and what can they tell us about the past?
How do weathered rock pieces move from one place to another?
What events can change Earth's surface quickly?
What are natural resources and what is important to know about them?
Students will...
Ask questions and defining problems
Developing and use models
Plan and carrying out investigations
Analyze and interpret data
Construct explanations and design solutions
Engage in an argument from evidence
Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information