Earth Systems
5th grade students in FCPS study Earth Systems. While at Outdoor School, students will identify the Earth’s systems and its components. They will collect evidence of these systems interacting in the form of a rock and mineral collection. Throughout their study, students will learn about the interactions between the hydrosphere, geosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere and how they interact to form the natural world. Using this information, combined with observations from their experience, students will work to answer the driving question: What can we do as individuals and communities to protect the Earth’s resources and environment?
The geosphere consists of the core, mantle and crust of the Earth.
The atmosphere contains all of the Earth’s air and is divided into troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere and ionosphere.
The hydrosphere contains all of the solid, liquid and gaseous water on Earth, extending from the depths of the sea to the upper reaches of the troposphere where water is found. Ninety-seven percent of the hydrosphere is found in salty oceans, and the remainder is found as vapor or droplets in the atmosphere and as liquid in ground water, lakes, rivers, glaciers and snowfields.
The biosphere includes all of Earth’s life forms, distributed in major life zones known as biomes: tundra, boreal forest, temperate deciduous forest, temperate grassland, desert, savannah, tropical rainforest, chaparral, freshwater, and marine.
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For more information about the Earth Systems unit taught in school, click here.
