Connection / Concept & Processes & Skills
How to be a good scientist?
- Use scientific tools properly and safely.
- Conduct fair investigations and record results accurately.
What is force? What evidence do we have of Earths’ forces? / There are 3 types of fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas.
Coal is formed from the buried remains of swamp plants that were changed by millions of years of heat and pressure.
Oil and natural gas are formed from the buried remains of microscopic ocean animals (zooplankton) and plant life (algae) that were changed by millions of years of pressure and heat.
All three types of fossil fuels require organisms to be buried in enough sediment to create pressure.
Pressure creates heat.
Fossil fuels contain sunlight energy stored by photosynthesis in plants, and the animals that ate the plants.
Fossil fuels are an important nonrenewable resource.
Misconceptions
- Oil forms in large empty spaces underground.
Fact: Although oil occasionally does fill in large cracks and reservoirs, the majority of the oil is found in porous rocks and small narrow cracks between small particles such as sand. - Fossil fuels have always been present in the Earth.
Fact: Oil and coal take a long time to form, but had to have plant life to begin forming. Alternatively, students may think oil and coal are made in much shorter time periods (hundreds, instead of millions of years). - Large animals such as dinosaurs, whales, or alligators helped to form fossil fuels.
Fact: The majority of organisms that help to form oil and natural gas are phytoplankton and zooplankton and swamp plant life form coal. - Oil, natural gas, and coal are all made from the same things. Fact: Oil and natural gas are made from the remains of ocean life. Coal is made from remains from swamp life.
Graphic Cues
Student Outcomes
Identify fossil fuels
- What is a fossil fuel?
- What is oil made from?
- What state of matter is oil?
- What is coal made from?
- What state of matter is coal?
- What is natural gas made from?
- What state of matter is natural gas?
- How are all fossil fuels the same?
- How are they different?
Identify how coal is created and how it is retrieved from the Earth
- How is coal formed?
- Where is coal formed?
- What organisms are used to form coal?
- How long does it take to form coal?
- What must be added from the Earth to form coal?
- How coal retrieved from the Earth?
- How are ferns related to coal?
Identify how oil is created and how it is retrieved from the Earth
- How is oil formed?
- Where is oil formed?
- What organisms are used to form oil?
- How long does it take to form oil?
- What must be added from the Earth to oil?
- How is oil retrieved from the Earth?
- How is zooplankton and algae related to oil?
Identify how natural gas is created and how it is retrieved from the Earth
- How is natural gas formed?
- Where is natural gas formed?
- What organisms are used to form natural gas?
- How long does it take to form natural gas?
- What must be added from the Earth to form natural gas?
- How is natural gas retrieved from the Earth?
- How is zooplankton and algae related to natural gas?
Identify how fossil fuels are used to create electrical energy.
- What has to happen to coal to release its energy?
- What types of energy are used to create electrical energy?
- What is release when the coal is burned?
Identify the basic advantages and disadvantages of using fossil fuels.
- How are fossil fuels used?
- What are the advantages of using fossil fuels?
- Why are fossil fuels important in everyday life?
- What are the disadvantages of using fossil fuels?
- Why should we look for other forms of energy?
- What does using fossil fuels cause?
- What is happening to the fossil fuels in Earth?
Understand how human behavior affects the amount of natural resources available for future generations.
- What are the advantages of conserving resources?
- What will be the impact if we continue to using waste our resources?
- What other things besides human behaviors can impact our natural resources?
Vocabulary Focus
Key Vocabulary for the Week
Coal
Natural resource / Oil
Natural gas / Fossil fuel
Plankton