Physical Science
Classes
Planetary Landscapes
Grades 4-6
Students experience Ned Khan's breathtaking "Planetary Landscapes: Sculpting the Solar System" exhibit. Then we focus on a select group of pieces to discover and explain the planetary forces at work within our solar system. Student will also discover and learn in the lab with hands-on activities that teach some of the geological principles shown in
"Sculpting the Solar System."
Vocabulary:
| plate tectonics |
meteor |
dirt |
| subduction |
crater |
temperature gradient |
| transverse process |
atmosphere |
planetary motion |
| volcanoes |
friction |
orbital motion |
| asteroids |
dust |
|
Possible Activities:
- Tour the Planetary Landscapes exhibit for initial reactions.
- Make detailed observations about a selected group of sculptures.
- In the classroom, create craters.
- Students may also create a volcano.
- Demonstrate a plate tectonics activity.
- Students make journals of their experiences.
Pre-Visit Activities
- Study geologic forces such as cratering, plate tectonics, erosion, and temperature variants.
- Introduce vocabulary.
- Research the general surface conditions on the other planets in our solar system.
Post-Visit Activities
- Have students record the processes they saw in the exhibit, and explore how these phenomena would explain geologic conditions on other planets.
- Ask students how they could recreate one of the exhibits they saw in planetary landscapes.
State of California Science Standards met in this class:
Grade 6
Plate Tectonics and Earth’s Structure
1. Plate tectonics explains important features of the Earth's surface and major geologic events. As the basis for understanding this concept, students know:
a. the fit of the continents, location of earthquakes, volcanoes, and midocean ridges, and the distribution of fossils, rock types, and ancient climatic zones provide evidence for plate tectonics.
b. the solid Earth is layered with cold, brittle lithosphere; hot, convecting mantle; and dense, metallic core.
c. lithospheric plates that are the size of continents and oceans move at rates of centimeters per year in response to movements in the mantle.
d. earthquakes are sudden motions along breaks in the crust called faults, and volcanoes/fissures are locations where magma reaches the surface.
e. major geologic events, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mountain building result from plate motions.
Shaping the Earth’s Surface
2. Topography is reshaped by weathering of rock and soil and by the transportation and deposition of sediment. As the basis for understanding this concept, students know:
a. water running downhill is the dominant process in shaping the landscape, including California’s landscape.
b. rivers and streams are dynamic systems that erode and transport sediment, change course, and flood their banks in natural and recurring
patterns.
c. beaches are dynamic systems in which sand is supplied by rivers and moved along the coast by wave action.
d. earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and floods change human and wildlife habitats.
Energy in the Earth System
4. Many phenomena on the Earth’s surface are affected by the transfer of energy through radiation and convection currents. As a basis for understanding this concept, students know:
a. the sun is the major source of energy for phenomena on the Earth’s surface, powering winds, ocean currents, and the water cycle.
b. solar energy reaches Earth through radiation, mostly in the form of visible light.
c. heat from Earth's interior reaches the surface primarily through convection.
d. convection currents distribute heat in the atmosphere and oceans.
e. differences in pressure, heat, air movement, and humidity result in changes of weather.
Grades 9-12
Earth Sciences
Earth’s Place in the Universe
1. Astronomy and planetary exploration reveal the structure, scale, and change of the solar system over time. As a basis for understanding this concept, students know:
a. how the differences and similarities among the sun, the terrestrial planets, and the gas planets may have been established during the formation of the solar system.
b. evidence from Earth and moon rocks for the solar system’s formation from a nebular cloud of dust and gas approximately 4.6 billion years ago.
c. evidence from geological studies of the Earth and other planets that the early Earth was very different from today.
f. evidence for the dramatic effects of asteroid impacts in shaping the surface of planets and their moons, and in mass extinctions of life on Earth.
g.* evidence for the existence of planets orbiting other stars.
Dynamic Earth Processes
3. Plate tectonics operating over geologic time has changed the patterns of land, sea, and mountains on the Earth's surface. As the basis for understanding this concept, students know:
a. features of the ocean floor (magnetic patterns, age, and sea floor topography) provide evidence for plate tectonics.
b. the principal structures that form at the three different kinds of plate boundaries.
c. how to explain the properties of rocks based on the physical and chemical conditions in which they formed, including plate tectonic processes.
d. why and how earthquakes occur, and the scales used to measure their intensity and magnitude.
e. two kinds of volcanoes, one with violent eruptions producing steep slopes and the other with voluminous lava flows producing gentle slopes.
f.* explanation for the location and properties of volcanoes that are due to hot spots and those that are due to subduction.
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