EARTH'S WATER

Disciplinary Core Ideas:

• Earth’s systems, being dynamic and interacting, cause feedback effects that can increase or decrease the original changes.

• Cyclical changes in the shape of Earth’s orbit around the sun, together with changes in the tilt of the planet’s axis of rotation, both occurring over hundreds of thousands of years, have altered the intensity and distribution of sunlight falling on the earth. These phenomena cause a cycle of ice ages and other gradual climate changes.

• The geological record shows that changes to global and regional climate can be caused by interactions among changes in the sun’s energy output or Earth’s orbit, tectonic events, ocean circulation, volcanic activity, glaciers, vegetation, and human activities. These changes can occur on a variety of time scales from sudden (e.g., volcanic ash clouds) to intermediate (ice ages) to very long-term tectonic cycles

Learning Expectations:

The student is expected to analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.

Iowa Core Correlation:

HS-ESS2-2:   Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth's surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.

HS-ESS2-5:  Plan and conduct an investigation of the properties of water and its effects on Earth materials and surface processes.

HS-ESS3-5:  Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.

HS-ESS3-6: Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity.

Minds on Earth Science (MOES):

MOES 122: The Water Cycle

MOES 123: Critical Reading

MOES 124: Literacy Practice

MOES 125: Nat Geo-"The Big Thaw" and "The Arctic is Heating Up"

MOES 126: Erosion by Water

MOES 127: Watersheds

MOES 128: Ice

MOES 129:  Ocean Currents

MOES 130: Melting Glaciers and Rising Seas

MOES 131: Ocean Acidification

MOES 132: Eutrophication and Dead Zones

MOES 133: Phosphorus and Water Quality

MOES 135: Drying Lakes

MOES 136: Feedback Mechanisms

MOES 137: ACT Prep: Marsh Pollution

MOES 138: ACT Prep-Cloud Cover

MOES 139: ACT Prep-Ocean Zones

MOES 140: Main Ideas 

MOES 141: Jeopardy

Objective:

(a.) Summarize and model the water cycle and identify sources of water.

Link:

• Interactive Water Cycle

Objectives:

(b.) Construct and analyze a scientific argument (C-E-R) that explains water's role in shaping Earth's surface (through weathering and erosion by rivers and glaciers).

(c.) Model how water and pollution flow in a watershed.

Links/Sources:

• Activity: How does stream flow affect the size of a delta?

Objectives:

(e.) Summarize water's role in regulating Earth's global climate (through ocean currents and ice).

Links/Sources:

• Activity/Demo: Convection Jars and Aquarium

Objectives:

(f.) Calculate sea level rise using the volume of a glacier or ice cap.

(g.) Summarize and model how melting ice, thawing permafrost, warming seas, ocean acidification and rising sea levels are a result of human-caused climate change.

(h.) Identify the cause-effect relationships that occur when a lake or wetland dries and calculate the percent water loss from a drying lake, wetland or river.

(i.) Summarize the important roles wetlands provide in flood prevention, wildlife diversity and pollution control and how human activities threaten wetlands.

(j.) Construct and analyze a scientific argument (C-E-R) that explains how excess nitrates and phosphates impact rivers and lakes.

(k.) Explain how dead zones form due to eutrophication and their impact on living organisms.

(l.) Identify feedback mechanisms that involve Earth's spheres.

Links/Sources:

• Watch sea ice melting in the Arctic between 1984 and 2019

• Canary in a Coal Mine: Greenland Ice Won't be Coming Back

• Nat Geo-If All the Ice Melted

• PBS: At the Core of Climate Change

• New York Times: Ocean Warming Is Accelerating Faster Than Thought, New Research Finds

• NASA-Thawing Permafrost

• What happens to the US Midwest When the Water's Gone?

• Why Some of the World's Largest Lakes are Drying Up

• PBS-Ocean Acidification

• NASA-Coral Bleaching Game

• Dead Zones Continue to Spread 

• Land and Living Systems