7Th Grade Science Unit 3: Restless Earth
Reporting Cluster: Structure of and Processes That Change Earth
Topic / Knowledge: / Assessments:
Structure of and Processes That Change Earth / 4 / In addition to score 3.0 performance, the student demonstrates in-depth inferences and applications that go beyond the target.
3
Proficient / Students demonstrate they have developed an understanding of:
- that tectonic plates constantly move at rates of centimeters per year in response to movements in the mantle, which cause geological events
- the creation of land forms are the result of a combination of constructive and destructive forces, such as volcanic eruptions, deposition of sediment, weathering and erosion
- changes in the earth that can be described as the rock cycle, are in constant motion
2 / Students will recognize or recall:
Specific vocabulary such as:
tectonic plates, convection, subduction, rock cycle, magma, mantle, rock, mineral, crust, core, convergent, divergent, fault, igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary
Basic knowledge such as:
- the three types of rocks
- the Earth’s crust is made up of a set of interconnecting plates that are in constant motion
- the difference between a rock and a mineral
- movement in plates can create earthquakes, mountains or volcanic eruptions
- the layers of the Earth, including a crust, mantle and core
1 / Student’s performance reflects insufficient progress towards foundational skills and knowledge.
Reporting Cluster: Structure of and Processes That Change Earth
Topic / Knowledge: / Assessments:
/ Reporting Cluster: Structure of and Processes That Change Earth
Knowledge: / Assessments:
/ Reporting Cluster: Structure of and Processes That Change Earth
Knowledge: / Assessments:
/ Reporting Cluster: Structure of and Processes That Change Earth
Assessments / Assessments:
History of Earth / 4 / In addition to score 3.0 performance, the student demonstrates in-depth inferences and applications that go beyond the target.
3
Proficient / Students demonstrate they have developed an understanding of:
- the earth processes we see today are similar to those that occurred in the past
- why fossils provide important evidence of how life and environmental conditions have changed
- the fossil record as an incomplete record of life on Earth
- the evidence supporting major extinction events and the causes
2 / Students will recognize or recall:
Specific vocabulary such as:
fossil, Pangaea, Geologic Time Scale, extinct, relative age, absolute age, radioactive dating, continental drift
Basic knowledge such as:
- Earth’s history has been influenced by occasional catastrophes such as the impact of an asteroid or a comet
- the Earth is constantly changing
- most living things do not become fossils
- fossils help scientists determine what past life and climate were like
- the continents are in constant motion
- the difference between relative and absolute age
1 / Student’s performance reflects insufficient progress towards foundational skills and knowledge.
Suggested Instructional Resources
Sample Learner Objectives / Topic / Textbook Resources / Labs / PBL Ideas
(projects) / Web Resources – websites or resources on
I Can:
- use data sets and/or maps that show patterns (location and frequency) of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunami events in a region to predict the likelihood of future geologic events.
- use plate tectonic models to support the explanation that, due to convection, matter cycles between Earth’s surface and deep mantle.
- explain the chemical and physical processes that form rocks and minerals and cycle Earth’s materials.
- give evidence to defend the claim that the Earth’s continents were once connected and are in constant motion.
- construct scale models of the geologic time scale to determine the relative ages of a sequence of events.
- use geologic evidence to determine the relative ages of a sequence of events that occurred in the Earth’s past.
- use evidence from the rock and fossil record to explain how past changes in Earth conditions have caused major extinctions of some life forms and have allowed others to flourish.
- construct explanations for why most individual organisms, as well as some entire species, that lived in the past were never fossilized
History of Earth