How Can the Surface of the Earth be Changed?

Students in room 177 began the second Interdisciplinary Unit, "Interdependence" shortly after the second quarter began.  We have been spending our time learning about the Earth.  To kick off this unit, students first examined two famous pieces of art:

Tar Beach 2 by Faith Ringgold

Horizon:  Ocean View by Richard Diebenkorn

Using these two pieces of art, students made predictions about the two different communities. They asked and were asked questions about the types of communities they saw in these pieces of art and wondered why people settled in that area. A compare and contrast of these the two paintings was completed using a Venn diagram.

After this lesson "hook" students were introduced to the Earth's landforms by reading from our Science text books.  Next, students were asked to take a globe of the Earth and, together with their P.R.I.D.E. group, apply their knew knowledge of landforms as they identified landforms throughout the world.

Adriana and Ray'Von collaborate as they identify landforms in Africa.

Jayda is identifying landforms in Asia.

Following this lab, students reviewed landforms by watching a Prezi and synthesized what they had learned while completing an interactive notebook entry in their science journals.

Darren works to complete his landform interactive notebook entry.

Students also learned about the layers of the Earth.  They learned that The Earth can be compared to a hard boiled egg.  Both the Earth and a hard boiled egg have an outer layer.  On the egg, this is the shell; on the Earth, this is called the crust.  Below the Earth's crust is the mantle.  This can be compared to the white part of the hard boiled egg.  Below the mantle is the Earth's core.  This can be compared to the yolk of the egg.  The core has two layers:  a liquid outer core and a solid inner core.

Next, students learned that natural disasters can change the Earth's surface quickly.  Some natural disaster's that can change the Earth's surface include earthquakes, floods, mudslides/ rock slides and volcanoes erupting.

Finally, students  learned the processes that can change the Earth's surface slowly.  These processes include weathering, erosion, and deposition.  Weathering is the breaking down of rocks on the Earth's surface over time.  Erosion is the movement of bits of rocks from one place to another.  Deposition happens when bits of rocks or minerals are added to a landform or a land mass.  After reading about these processes in our text books, students watched a Study Jams Weathering and Erosion Video.

Afterward, students were given an interactive notebook entry on weathering, erosion, and deposition to complete with a partner.  To complete this task, students used the glossary of their science text book to document the definition of these three important terms.

Lavon's interactive notebook entry for Weathering, Erosion
and Deposition

Next, students worked with their table partner to complete a Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition mini-lab which consisted of a science sort.  In order to complete this lab, first, as a class we examined some of the terms on the sorting cards.  We noted that some of the terms were the names of landforms that we had not studied in class.  We circled those terms so that we knew that those were landforms or land masses.

Next, we discussed the word "sediments" and learned that it is synonym for rocks.  We wrote that at the top of our sorting sheet so that we would remember that helpful hint.  We, then referred to the interactive notebook entry that we had just completed with our partner and found key words for each term.

• For weathering, we decided that "breaking" was a key word.  
• For erosion,  we decided that "movement" was a key word in the definition.  
• For deposition, we decided that "dropped off" were key words for the definition.  

We also discovered that one of the sorting cards had the word "deposited" on it.  Students determined that "deposit" is the root word for deposited with a suffix -ed.  We took a closer look at the word "deposition" and found that the word "deposit" is also the root word with a suffix of -ion.  We discussed how root words can help give us clues to solving problems.  Finally, students worked with their table partner in a "Partner with a Purpose" relationship.  Their purpose was to evaluate the clues on each sorting card and determine which process to which that card belonged.  

As students worked with partners, Ms. Amstutz circulated the room and assessed student's thinking and learning.  Here is one example:

In this example, Da'Marieon defends his 

thinking about a glacier dragging sediment 

through a valley.

Da'Marieon and Lavon partnered together to sort scenarios demonstrating
slow changes in the earth's surface into the categories of
weathering, erosion, and deposition.

Sorting Science Mini-Lab.  Student's circled landforms names and
highlighted the clue words that helped them identify
which column to place their card into. (Note:  The one error in this
sort was corrected after this photo was taken).