SCIENCE STRAND Ill:
EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE
Earth and space science at the sixth-grade level generally involves events or phenomena that students can witness either directly in their surroundings or indirectly through television or film. Collected observations and inferences made based on collected evidence are also topics for consideration.
11. Describe simple cycles of the earth, sun, and moon.
This outcome tests students’ abilities to describe or identify arrangements of earth, sun, and moon that produce eclipses (solar and lunar), a new moon, high and/or low tides, seasons, phases of the moon (crescent to full), etc. Students should have a basic understanding of the relationship between the earth’s tilt and the seasons; the relationship between hemispherical location and seasonal temperatures or cycles (e.g., amount of sunlight); the revolution of the earth around the sun and the moon around the earth; phases of the moon and their relationship to the moon’s position near the earth; tides; and changing daylight/darkness hours. Particularly important is that students not retain common misconceptions regarding cycles or phenomena (e.g., the misconception that the earth’s distance from the sun causes the seasons, or that a crescent moon is the result of the earth’s shadow on the moon).
Since arrangements of the sun, earth, and moon are often simulated using models, students should be aware of and able to discuss limitations of such models. Students should also be able to discuss the concepts and phenomena reinforced by such models.
12. Identify characteristics and/or patterns in rocks and soil.
This outcome tests students’ abilities to identify the relative hardness of a mineral using scratch tests and the Mohs, scale of hardness; recognize or describe in comparative terms (e.g., oldest, youngest) the age of disturbed or undisturbed rock layers; identify or describe characteristics and/or patterns caused by various natural phenomena (e.g., glaciers, earthquakes, rivers, wind); identify land features from a contour map; and analyze data about rock or soil types and identify the following: steps in the formation of rock types (igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic), water-holding capacity, and factors affecting the development of soil (e.g., climate, plants and animals, land surface features, time, type of parent material).
Students should be familiar with those characteristics or patterns of rocks and soil that can be directly observed or tested; erosion, weathering, layering, hardness testing, and scratch testing are things with which students should have direct experience.
13. Demonstrate an understanding of the cycling of resources on earth, such as carbon, nitrogen, and/or water.
Students should be able to identify major steps or processes in the carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles (e.g., respiration, combustion, photosynthesis, decomposition, evaporation, condensation, precipitation); identify or describe organisms or pathways through which these processes occur; identify or describe physical or biological factors that affect these processes; and identify where organisms get the nutrients or gases they need in the cycle, and/or how they make those nutrients or gases available to other organisms. Understanding of cycling of resources, plants’ importance to all these processes, and environmental results of deforestation are important to this outcome.
Students should be practiced in thinking about the cycling of resources as an accounting of things as they change form, similar to how one can think of the conservation of mass or energy. Students should also be experienced in discussing and explaining what can account for changes in matter or the way resources can and cannot be cycled.
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