Proton +

Neutron + -

Electron -

Suggested Instructional Sequence

5th Grade Science

Physical Science: I would start with physical science because you can then apply that information to the Living Systems and Earth’s Cycles Units. What follows is the information I would want the students to understand and the approach I would take.

Big Idea: Atoms are the basic unit of matter. We classify atoms using the periodic table based on the number of protons they have.

So let’s lose all that complicated chemistry talk and cut to the chase in plain English your kids can understand. The reason we call atoms the basic unit of matter is when we separate any substance chemically (break the atomic bonds holding it together) we end up with atoms. For example when we make rocket fuel, we chemically separate water (H2O). When we do that we end up with H hydrogen atoms and O oxygen atoms. If we put those atoms together again in a confined space, like a rocket engine, they recombine explosively (providing thrust for the rocket) and turn back into water. So enough rocket science let’s talk Legos. I can build all sorts of stuff from Legos, however; went I take that stuff apart again I end up with a bunch of individual Legos (atoms). I can build something different out of the same Lego pieces, but I can always take it back apart and end up with individual Legos (atoms) for the next project.

Atoms have three parts. At the center of the atom, which we call the nucleus, reside two types of big (atomically speaking) parts: positively charged protons and no charge neutrons. Zipping around the outside of the atom are much smaller, negatively charged electrons. As a general rule for 5 th grade, the parts of the atom are always balanced. Any atom with one proton has one neutron and one electron. Any atom with two protons has two neutrons and two electrons, etc.

Unfortunately at this point we are going to have to get totally scientific to explain how we classify atoms and how we define some terms. So put on your science hat and think about a bucket of Legos. So I have this big bucket of Legos (atoms) and I dump them out on the floor because I’m going to build some

1

stuff. The first thing I need to do is sort them out so I can find the pieces I want. When I’m done sorting, I have a pile of one button Legos, a pile of two button Legos, a pile of three button Legos, etc. Now get really scientific and think Legos equal atoms. Lego buttons equal protons. We classified the Legos based on the number of buttons they have. We classify atoms based on the number of protons they have.

Looking at the periodic table we can clearly see that each box (element) has a number associated with it. Any one button Lego would go in the number one box, any two button Lego would go in the number two box, etc. Atoms work the same way only we count the protons instead of the buttons. Any atom with one proton is hydrogen. Any atom with two protons is helium, etc.

For the purposes of 5th grade instruction your kids should be able to identify and draw a model of number 1 (hydrogen) to number 10 (Neon). An easy way to do this is to play the atom game. I’m thinking of an atom with 8 protons, what is it? Once they have the idea firmly in mind that there is a direct correlation between the number of protons and the periodic table, the next step is to draw models of several atoms. The model should have an equal amount of protons, neutrons and electrons just like the model on the previous page. I’m thinking of an atom with 6 protons; draw me a model (picture) of it and tell me what it is.

2

Back to our Lego piles that we have sorted according to the number of buttons they contain, we can hammer out some definitions. I reach into the pile of one button Legos (1 proton atoms) and pick up a single one. I have a hydrogen atom. Looking down at the pile of one button Legos (one proton atoms) I am looking at the element hydrogen. Think in terms of atom being singular, and element being plural. Elements are always “pure substances” in that they only contain one type of atom.

Now let’s talk molecules. Atoms, just like Legos, can stick together to make other things. So if I reach over and pick up an 8 button Lego (an oxygen atom), then I reach over and pick up two 1 button Legos (2 hydrogen atoms), and I attach the two one button Legos to the 8 Button Lego, I come up with a molecule, H2O or water. If I have a glass full of water molecules, I have a compound of water. Once again, for 5th grade, think molecule as singular and compound as plural. Again I can take a 6 button (carbon) Lego and use it to connect two 8 button Legos (oxygen) and I would have a molecule of CO2 or carbon dioxide. (Note: I deliberately picked these two molecules and you may want to do the same. We will use them again in the living systems unit)

When atoms combine like this, there is a “chemical change”. I end up with a totally different substance then what I started with. Hydrogen is a gas. Oxygen is a gas. When two hydrogen atoms join with one oxygen atom we end up with liquid water, a totally new substance. In a “physical change” I always end up with what I started with. I can take an ice cube and smash it, then melt it, then steam it off into water vapor, then condense it back to water and at each step I have changed it, but I always have water and I always end up with water. If I pass a strong electrical current through water it will cause the hydrogen atoms to separate from the oxygen atoms. I have a chemical change because I started with water and ended up with hydrogen and oxygen.

Ok, so we are done with the Legos for a while, we pick them up and throw them back into the bucket. You just made a mixture. A mixture is a physical combination of different items that can be physically separated. We have a whole bunch of different Legos in the bucket and when we want to use them again we can simply pick them out and sort them again. Solutions are a little hard to do with Legos so we’ll go with Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid is a powder that we can dissolve in water. When we do that, we have a solution. In a solution, if we allow the water to evaporate, we would end up with the Kool-Aid back in the bottom of the glass. It would come “out of solution”. The trick to a solution is that the Kool-Aid will be evenly distributed throughout the water (the solvent) when it is “in solution”.

At this point it would be helpful for your students to make a couple of models of molecules (H2O and CO2) and to diagram a mixture and solution. It’s all about practice for the assessment! Here is something to think about when you have them build molecules. Looking back at the periodic table, hydrogen, #1 has one proton and one electron and one neutron. Oxygen, #8, has 8 protons, eight electrons and 8 neutrons. So thinking mathematically if all protons, neutrons and electrons are the same size in each atom, oxygen is 8 times bigger than hydrogen. If your kids get that and they draw it that way, you will be doing your students and the following science teachers a huge favor.

3

H H Oxygen Oxygen

H2O CO2

Oxygen Carbon

The Interaction of Energy and Matter

The final piece of physical science is actually a review of a concept the kids should have from third grade. It is about the relationship of energy and matter. Your students should be able to diagram the relative position and motion of water molecules in a solid, liquid or gas phase and relate it to the amount of energy. To get the crux of the idea visit the two websites below and play.

http://phet.colorado.edu/simulations/sims.php?sim=States_of_Matter

http://www.footprints-science.co.uk/states.htm

If your students have a basic handle on how energy interacts with matter it will pay off big when we get to earth’s systems.

Living Systems: Your students should arrive at your door with a conceptual understanding of how ecosystems work. They know that plants are producers; animals are consumers and that energy flows and matter cycles through an ecosystem. In 5th grade we are going to take them from the big system and focus on a component of that system, the producers.

Big Idea: Cells are the basic unit of life. We use them to classify living things as plants or animals.

We call the cell the basic unit of life because it the smallest thing that can sustain life independently. In short, there are one- cell plants and animals. Below are the basics your students should know about the differences between plant and animal cells:

Plant Cells Animal CellsHave a nucleus Have a nucleusHave a cell wall and cell membrane Have a cell membraneNormally rectangular in shape Normally have an irregular shapeHave chloroplast Have a mitochondriaConverts H2O and CO2 into sugar using sunlight with a waste product of O2

Converts sugar into energy using O2 with a waste product of CO2 and H2O

Have one large vacuole May have small vacuoles

4

That is the nuts and bolts of what a 5th grader needs to know about cells. If they can distinguish between plant and animal cells by using the organelles in the chart and know what each organelle does, they have everything they need for the remainder of the unit.

Big Idea: Plant cells are organized into plant systems (organs) that provide for the needs of the plant.

In multi-celled plants and animals, similar cells are organized into tissue, similar tissues are organized into organs, and the organs work together to meet the needs of the organism. In the plant, which is the organism, the plant organs (root, stem, leaves, flowers, and fruit/seed) provide what the plant needs to grow and reproduce. Each plant organ is composed of specialized tissue, which is composed of specialized cells.

Big Idea: Plants and animals are interdependent. Plants produce food (sugar) and oxygen through the process of photosynthesis. Animals use oxygen to convert that food (sugar) into the energy that they need. The waste products from the animal are the water and CO2 needed by the plant.

Photosynthesis: In a nutshell, plants create their food from carbon dioxide, which they extract from the air, and water. Plants absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air through pores in their leaves, pull water (H2O) from the ground through their root system, and transport it to their leaves. Light energy absorbed by the chlorophyll (green pigment in the chloroplast) is used to break the CO2 and H2O molecules apart (think Legos) and put them back together again as a sugar molecule (glucose) C6H12O6. The waste material from this chemical process (the unused atoms from the broken apart H2O and CO2) chemically recombine to make oxygen (O2) which is expelled from the plant through the leaves.

5

Animals, on the other hand, eat the sugar made by plants ( C6H12O6 ) and breath in the oxygen (O2) let off by plants. The sugar and oxygen are broken apart in animal cells (in the mitochondria) and rearranged to provide the energy the animal needs to live. The waste material from this chemical reaction in the animal cell is carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O).

Let’s take a look at all these funny little letter and number symbols we’ve been using for water and oxygen, etc. (I told you I used them for a reason.) As you know from our physical science discussion, atoms are the basic units of matter just like cells are the basic unit of life. We classify atoms using the periodic table based on the number of protons they have. We also used a letter or letters to identify each element / atom so we don’t have to write it out all the time (H for Hydrogen, O for Oxygen, C for carbon). Also remember that atoms can combine with other atoms to make molecules. In science we use the letters from the periodic table to tell you what the molecule/ compound is made of. Instead of writing out water is made of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms they simply write the symbols from the periodic table H2O. You can see the H for Hydrogen. The little 2 after the H tells you how many hydrogen atoms are in the molecule and the O for Oxygen. Since there is no little number after the O we know there is only one Oxygen atom in the molecule.

Scientists use chemical symbols like O2 in formulas to explain things that happen in the real world. The entire first part of this discussion explaining how plants make food through photosynthesis can be expressed by the formula

6 CO2 + 6 H2O + light -> C6H12O6 + 6 O2

6 Carbon Dioxide molecules + 6 water molecules + light -> sugar + 6 oxygen molecules

In an equation, the number in front of the chemical symbol tells you how many of those molecules are involved in the process. The +, just like in math, means to add. The arrow is just like a math equal sign but it also indicates a chemical reaction happened. So we could read the formula above as “Plants take 6 carbon dioxide molecules from the air and 6 water molecules from the ground and light into their chloroplast. A chemical reaction happens (the light energy is used to break the carbon dioxide and water molecules apart and rearrange the atoms). The product of that chemical reaction is sugar (glucose) and 6 oxygen molecules. The plants use the glucose and expel the oxygen back into the air.

Think Legos again here. I have 6 sets of 6 button Legos (carbon). Each 6 button Lego is attached to two 8 button Legos (oxygen) giving me 6 CO2 Molecules. I also have six 8 button Legos (oxygen). Each of those has two 1 button Legos (hydrogen) attached to it giving me 6 H2O molecules.

6

I physically place them on the desk in front of me just like the plant will physically transport them into the chloroplast in a plant cell. I take the Legos on the desk in front of me and physically pull them apart and arrange them in piles of 1 button Legos, 6 Button Legos and 8 button Legos. I used the energy from my body to pull the Legos apart. The plant uses the energy from the sun to pull the molecules apart. The right hand side of the table below shows you how many of each type of atoms I have in my piles. If you can’t see how we got there simply go up to the previous page and physically count each type of Lego (atom) in the molecules.

6 CO2 + 6 H2O + light C6H12O6 + 6 O2

6 CO2 6 H2O = C6H12O6 6 O2

6 C 12 O 12 H 6 O = 6 C 12 H 6 O 12 OTotal # of Carbon Atoms: 6Total # of Hydrogen Atoms: 12Total # of Oxygen Atoms: 18

=Total # of Carbon Atoms: 6Total # of Hydrogen Atoms: 12Total # of Oxygen Atoms: 18

So now I need to do something useful with these piles of atoms I have on my desk so I start to reassemble them into something I need, sugar. I have 12 Oxygen atoms left over that I don’t need so I let them combine into 6 O2 molecules and push them off the table. The plant will push them out into the air.

C6H12O6 O2

Oxygen

Carbon

Hydrogen

And there you have Lego Photosynthesis! A couple of things to note; notice that we always end up with the same number of atoms we started with. That would be the Law of Conservation. Chemical reactions do not create or destroy atoms. Chemical reactions simply rearrange the atoms involved. Count the Lego atoms and see if we ended up with the same number we started with. Additionally, atoms bond in specific sequences based on their electron arrangement, so a real C6H12O6 molecule does not look like the Lego block above. Conceptually the exact thing we described using Legos really does happen. The end product just does not look like the Lego model product.

7

Animals do the exact opposite process in mitochondria of their cells. They take in the Lego models above and capture the energy released from the atomic bonds while rearranging the atoms back into CO2 and H2O. We call this process cellular respiration. BIG IDEA: That exchange of energy and atoms is the link between plants and animals.

The last piece of living systems is traits. The Big Idea is that like reproduces like. Pea plant seeds produce pea plants. Rabbits produce rabbits, etc. All peas and rabbits are not the same just like all people are not the same. Each plant has traits (long roots, thorns, etc.) that may contribute to its survival and enhance the chance that it may reproduce passing on that trait. Traits are neutral. They may enhance the plant’s chance of survival, detract from the plant’s chance of survival or have absolutely no effect on the plants chance of survival. Let’s take a look at how this might work. There are a bunch of pea plants. Some have a trait for longer roots and some have a trait for shorter roots. During a normal water year the rains come at a regular interval and all the plants flourish. The trait has no effect on the plant’s ability to reproduce and propagate the trait. The following year is a really heavy rain year and the soil remains very saturated. The short root plants do much better then the long root plants because even with the heavy rains the water percolates down through the soil and the short roots are not constantly saturated and subjected to root rot. Conversely, the long root plants have lots of root rot and don’t do well. More of the short root plants will reproduce and therefore there will be more short root plants. Having the short root trait enhances the plant’s chance of survival. Having longer roots detracts from the plant’s chance of survival. Then comes five years of drought, the rains do not come and the short root plants wither and die. Conversely, the long root plants can chase the water down through the soil just far enough so they can go through their life cycle and reproduce. Over the five years of drought the longer root will dominate the population. In this case, having long roots is beneficial and short roots detrimental.

The bottom line to this whole thing is that as the environment changes, or competitive pressure increases, the plant or animal that possesses the traits which allow it to adapt and reproduce will become the most prevalent “type” of that plant or animal. If longer legged rabbits can outrun foxes better then short legged rabbits, there will be more, longer legged rabbits. If shorter bodied foxes are more agile and better able to catch longer legged rabbits, there will be more, shorter bodied foxes.

Earth’s Cycles

In 5th grade we are looking at the structure of earth itself (the Geosphere), and how earth’s systems cycle matter causing the rock cycle, earthquakes and volcanoes. We’ll also classify non-living things (rocks). 6th grade will pick up from there and do the atmosphere and weather.

Earth’s Structure

So, let’s start with the earth itself. Evidence suggests that the earth is composed of 4 layers, the solid inner core, the liquid outer core, a plastic like mantel and the outer rocky crust that we live on. No one has ever been “to the center of the earth” so our ideas of what the inside of the earth “looks like” is

8

based on evidence from seismic (earthquake) waves. When an earthquake happens, the energy released travels through the earth in the form of waves. Put a glass of water on top of a desk and begin tapping the desk. You are imparting energy into the desk that is transmitted through the desk in the form of waves. You can see those energy waves in the water. The same thing happens with the energy from an earthquake. We have sensors (seismographs) that can detect and record the energy transmitted from earthquakes just like the glass of water can detect the energy transmitted by tapping on the table. By looking at where the earthquake happened, and how the energy is transmitted, we can get a “picture” of the inside of the earth. The same idea applies to sonograms. By transmitting sound waves into a mother to be, and recording the waves as they bounce back, we can draw a “picture” of her baby in the womb.

By applying the same principle to earthquake energy waves here is the picture we get of inner earth.

Here are some general rules about earth. The deeper you go toward the core, the denser the material, the higher the pressure, and the hotter it gets. The evidence indicates that the inner core is solid (very dense) and extremely hot. We believe the heat comes from the high pressure and from radioactive decay in the core. Next up is a liquid outer core, and then a “gooey” plastic-like mantle. Finally we have a cool solid crust. The crust is the least dense of all the layers so it “floats” on the mantle.

9

Plate Tectonics

Now comes the tricky part. We are going to be dealing with two very big science ideas as they apply to earth. Big Idea number one is: Heat always moves to cold. Big Idea number two is: Mother Nature always wants everything to be equal. You have a nice hot cup of soup and the phone rings; you put the soup on the counter. When you get done with the call, the soup is cold. Where did the heat go? The heat energy moved into the cooler air around the cup (heat moves to cold) and then out through the room until everything is the same temperature (Mother Nature wants everything to be equal). That red hot coil on the stove you used to heat up the soup is now also cool for the same reason. You place your hand on a cold surface and it feels cold because the heat from your hand is moving into the surface to warm it up to a matching temperature. You place your hand on a hot surface and the heat from the surface moves into your colder hand trying to make both the same temperature.

Earth works the same way. The inner core is really, really, really hot and it is trying to get rid of that heat to the outer core so they can both be equal. The outer core has quite a bit more area, so it can spread the heat around more so it’s a little cooler than the inner core. The outer core is also getting rid of its heat to the mantle trying to make it equal, and the mantle is trying to give its heat away to the crust. Fortunately for us, we are on the outside and surrounded by a universe that is very cold so we can get rid of a lot of heat relatively fast.

What we are really interested in here is How the heat energy moves from inside to outside because that has a whole lot to do with what happens out here on the crust. To do that let’s go back to the kitchen and review the energy and matter thing we did in physical science. We know that in a solid all the atoms and molecules are wiggling and jiggling around, but they are locked into a set position. If we add enough energy to a solid, the atoms and molecules wiggle and jiggle a lot more. They are still in contact with each other, but they begin to wiggle and jiggle and spin out of position which allows them to slide around each other. When the molecules start to slide around each other we have reached the melting point and you have a liquid. If we add even more energy, the atoms and molecules start wiggling and jiggling so hard they can break the attraction that is keeping them in contact with other molecules. Free from their intermolecular attractions they can fly off in any direction and we have a gas. Temperature is simply a measure of how fast the atoms and molecules are moving.

Let’s go back to our cup of soup. I didn’t tell you this before, but it’s chicken noodle. We put it in a pot on the stove and turn the stove on. The stove starts to run electrical energy in massive doses into the coil, which makes the atoms and molecules in the coil wiggle and jiggle like crazy. The coil gets red hot. The cooler pot is sitting on the hot coil. All those atoms and molecules wiggling and jiggling like crazy in the coil are smacking into the atoms and molecules at the bottom of the pan and causing them to wiggle and jiggle faster (heating up). The atoms and molecules in the coil will keep on smacking until all the atoms and molecules in the pot are moving at the same wiggle / jiggle rate. This is called conduction. Energy is being transferred by direct molecule to molecule contact.

We have our soup in the pan. As the atoms and molecules in the pot start to wiggle and jiggle harder, they are smacking into the soup molecules that they are in contact with trying to get them to wiggle and

10

jiggle at the same rate. Liquids are a little different than solids in that they are not locked in place. The molecules in a liquid closest to the molecules in the pot are heating up quite a bit faster than the molecules not in contact with the pot. If we watch the bottom of the pot we see little bubbles starting to form. The bubbles are actually water that has gained enough energy to turn into gas (steam). As we continue to heat up the fluid at the bottom of the pot, the cooler, denser fluid at the top of the pot starts to sink which pushes the hotter, less dense fluid at the bottom of the pot upward. This movement of cooler, denser fluid from the top of the pot to the bottom of the pot which is pushing the hotter less dense fluid up is called convection. You can see it happening by watching the noodles as they ride this convection current up in the middle of the pot and down towards the sides of the pot.

(Note: Density is simply the number of atoms / molecules in a given area. As we heat something up the atoms move faster and get farther apart. If the atoms are farther apart there are fewer of them in the given area they started in so they are less dense.)

Take the exact same idea to the layers of the earth. As the heat energy moves up from the core, the bottom of the mantle, which is in direct contact with the core, heats up faster than the rest of the mantle. As it gets hotter the atoms and molecules move faster and get farther apart making them less dense. The cooler, denser material at the top starts to sink displacing the hotter, less dense material at the bottom of the mantle forcing it upward. This continuous process of energy transfer creates convection currents in the mantle the same way it does in the soup pot. The difference in the earth system is that the convection currents in the mantle create a frictional force that pushes and pulls the earth’s crust.

Looking at the picture above, we’ll walk through how we think the crust moves. For 5 th grade purposes the gray layer labeled “Lithosphere” is simply the crust. The Asthenosphere is the upper layer of the mantle which seems to have different properties than the rest of the mantle. 5 th graders do not have to know what it is or what the properties are. Looking at the top center of the picture, you’ll see the word ridge. Notice that the convective flow of the mantle hits the crust there with hot material (helping to do a little crustal “melting”.) It is then forced along the bottom of the crust. As the mantle moves along the bottom of the crust it “pulls” on the crust creating weak spots in the crust at the ridge. Magma in

11

the mantle fills the weak spot (crack) at the ridge. Magma cools into rock at the ridge and the new rock wedges the crust apart. So at the ridges, the convection currents in the mantle pull the crust apart which allows magma to flow out of the mantle and cool into rock becoming new crust. (Divergent Plate Boundary)

That creates a problem. If the earth is constantly building new crust at the ridges, then the earth’s surface should constantly be getting bigger. It’s not, so every time we add new rock to the crust we have to be losing some crust someplace. Fortunately, that does in fact happen at the trenches (convergent boundaries / subduction zones). The rocky material of the crust at the bottom of the oceans is a whole lot more dense (more atoms per cubic inch) than the crust that forms continents (less atoms per cubic inch). Notice that at the location marked “trench” in the picture that the convection currents are moving in different directions. The crust is moving in different directions in this area which builds up a lot of pressure. The crust is getting jammed together. At this point a couple of things happen. The less dense crust begins to buckle forming mountains. The more dense crust begins to buckle down forming a trench. Finally the crust breaks when the less dense crust “rides up” over the more dense crust. The more dense crust that is forced down begins to melt back into mantle material.

Add some new crust at a ridge (divergent plate boundary), get rid of some old crust at a trench (subduction zone) and the earth stays the same size. Notice that the mechanisms we just described have taken the crust and broken it into sections.

12

The picture above shows the major crustal sections called plates. Plates move away from ridges and toward trenches. Since all ridges or all sections of bigger ridges are not adding the same amount of material to the crust at the same time, plates don’t always move straight. The red arrows show the predominant plate movement in recent history. Look at the South American plate and the Nazca Plate. Let’s look at them in a bit more detail.

Imagine the picture above as a cross sectional view of the Pacific Ocean. The spreading ridge is the junction of the Nazca Plate and the Pacific Plate and the Trench is the junction between the Nazca Plate and the South American Plate. Now go to http://maps.google.com/ , click on satellite view and find Santiago, Chile. Notice the volcanic mountains and trench associated with the convergent plate boundary on the west coast of Chile. As you move off the west coast of Chile, look at the faint spreading ridge on the bottom of the ocean which runs North / South. All the East / West lines are fracture zones caused by the uneven eruptions along the divergent boundary. As you continue out across the Pacific Ocean on Google Maps, you will see the Pitcairn Islands, French Polynesia, and the Cook Islands. These are shield volcanoes cause by hot spots in the crust (We think the crust is either a little thinner or there is a fracture line in these areas allowing magma to escape the mantle). Zoom in on them a little and you can see the volcanic domes rising from the sea floor. As you continue West and North a little bit on Google Maps, you will see more trenches indicating another convergent boundary ( this one is ocean plate to ocean plate) and the Island Arcs associated with them (Fiji, New Caledonia, Indonesia, etc.) You can see how the picture above corresponds to the real world.

Earthquakes and Volcanoes

Earthquakes and volcanoes are easy. Earthquakes happen any time you tear the crust apart or push it together. As the convection currents in the mantle pull on the crust and magma pushes up at spreading ridges (divergent plate boundaries), enormous force builds up in the crust. When the crust fractures, you have an earthquake. On the other end of the plates at the trenches, huge slabs of rock are trying to

13

push past each other as one plate goes back into the mantle and the other rides up over top of it. The frictional forces on the rock resist this movement. Pressure builds up until the force of the pressure overcomes the force of friction and the plates “slip”. That slip releases the built up energy and you have an earthquake. The other place that earthquakes occur is typically associated with volcanoes. Magma moves toward the surface through fractures in the rock. As the magma moves up, it forces the rock apart. When that happens, you have an earthquake. The earthquakes associated with volcanoes are typically “minor league” when compared to the earthquakes associated with plate movement. Look at the plate boundaries above and at the current active earthquakes and volcanoes:

http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/volcanoes/index.html

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/

Do you see any correlation between the plate boundaries and the volcanic and earthquake activity?

The Rock Cycle

Big Idea: The rock cycle simply tracks the atoms (matter) of the earth as they are moved around the system as a result of plate tectonics. Elements / atoms in the mantle are moved to the crust via volcanoes. Those elements and atoms cool and bond into mineral crystals. Two or more minerals bond to make rocks. Rocks are exposed to forces on the surface (weather, wind, chemicals) that break them down etc., etc., etc. The details are contained in the Rock Cycle Power Point attached to your curriculum page right below the link that got you to this document. If your 5 th graders understand the “Rock Cycle” part of the power point (at the end with the pictures) and can create a model of how it works in the real world, we are golden.

Classifying Rocks

Classifying rocks can be done with the STC Rocks and Mineral Kit. In 4 th grade, students were introduced to a “formal” classification system when they classified animals (living things). You have extended this idea by classifying matter using atoms and the periodic table and classifying life based on cell structure. We extend the idea of “formal scientific classification” by classifying the rocks we have been referring to in plate tectonics and the resulting rock cycle. The Big Idea: Is the scientific classification process we use to classify non-living things like rocks. We are not trying to create full up geologist.

14

15