Sculpting the Earth
A Classrooms Unleashed Program
for Sixth Grade Students
Sculpting the Earth focuses on plate tectonics and land formation. In class, students will explore the causes of plate movement and related natural events. Then, on a field trip, they will identify rocks and study how the local landscape was formed.
All of our lessons are backward designed from Next Generation Science Standards for sixth grade. In addition to the Sierra Nevada Journeys-led lessons, classroom teachers will be provided with 3-4 easy-to-use learning experiences to reinforce concepts and vocabulary, as well as pre- and post-assessments.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Classroom Lesson: CHANGES BENEATH OUR FEET
Student geologists use maps, diagrams and images, to look for clues to explain why earthquakes happen in some places and not in others. Students construct an understanding of plate tectonics, including the plate movements that cause earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain formation and seafloor spreading.
Outdoors at a local nature area: GEOLOGISTS IN THE FIELD
This field study, students use their observation skills to explore the outdoors and document evidence of weathering and erosion — as a real and natural process — in the field.
FIELD Trip Locations:
Deer Creek Hills Nature Preserve, Sloughhouse, CA
Galena Creek Park, Reno, NV
TEACHER INFORMATION
NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS
PE: MS-ESS2-2. Construct an explanation based on evidence for how geoscience processes have changed Earth’s surface at varying times and spatial scales.
PE: MS-ESS2-3. Analyze and interpret data on the distribution of fossils and rocks, continental shapes, and seafloor structures to provide evidence of past plate motions.
DCI: ESS2.B: Plate Tectonics and Large-Scale System Interactions.
SEP: Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions.
California partnership with:
