Week 4: The Earth, a Product of the Spheres

Week 4: The Earth
Weeks 4, 5, and 6 make up a three-week cycle about land. Currently, you are in Week A: Teacher As Researcher.

This week you should refer to the resources listed under Readings & References, and you need to complete the assignments listed under Assignments & Rubrics. This week’s assignments focus on…

Individual:

Doing an activity with your students.
- Exploring Rocks
- The Little Rocks
- Diggin' Dirt
Posting reflections about what students learned from the activity.
Responding to teammates' reflections.
Suggesting criteria for effective concept-building activities.

Team:

Developing criteria for effective concept-building activities and the learning and teaching strategies that make them work

Readings & References
Read: Model your sample terrarium for your students. Keep this terrarium on hand as you may use it again for the Weeks 4 and 7 activities.

Read: Planet Earth, while probably one of an infinite number of stellar satellites in the universe, is the only one that people really have begun to understand in depth. Earth materials or matter, while seemingly very diverse, were probably all formed from just one element (H₂) in the nuclear furnaces of stars and planets. The history of the Earth, as reconstructed in human understanding, is a story of materials made in a stellar "blast furnace," collected and mixed in a "blender," melted, solidified and plowed, pushed, forced by heat, wind, water and rocks for over four billion years. Of course this stable, yet changing, Earth has also served as the platform (or skeleton) for the development of a living planet.

Science education should help students develop an understanding of Earth history as well as understand the dynamics of daily Earth processes. The inquiries that seem to have the biggest long-term payoff for developing K-4 student understanding are those that involve direct contact with and investigation of examples that are taken directly from the students' experiences. Thus, this three-week cycle about land is designed to focus on inquiry learning developed from local materials and events:

What rocks, sand, clay and soil do the students have in their neighborhood?
What are they made of?
How did they get there?
Where are they going?
Why are they important to life?
How do the air, water, living organisms, and sun affect and interact with these materials?

Recommended Web Sites:

Framework for Earth Systems Education: Understanding #7

Assignments & Rubrics
You will work individually and in teams to address land during this three-week cycle. When doing this week's assignments, think about some possible answers to the essential questions below.

How do rocks change?
Where does soil come from?
How does the soil help plants grow?
What happens to plants when they die?
How do earthworms affect the soil?

Use the links below to access the assignments and rubrics.

Week A: Teacher As Researcher - Individual
Classroom Action Research Assignment & Rubric
You will do an activity with your students, reflect on the provided questions, reply to your teammates' reflections, and suggest criteria for effective concept-building activities.

Week 4 Land Activities

Week A: Teacher As Researcher - Team
Criteria-Building Assignment & Rubric
You and your teammates will develop and agree on criteria for effective concept-building activities.

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Last updated August 07, 2000