Course Outline
Nine-week Unit
This course outline is designed to start out the year immediately following an introductory "What is Science" week. This nine-week unit allows time within two 6- week grading periods for an introductory week, a week for review before an exam and an extra week for either extensions or make-up for the topics that went over the scheduled time allotment.
The curriculum begins the year starting inward with the Earth and is designed to be part of a year with an astronomy unit set up as the final unit, ending outwards. The Curriculum is set up with extra focus on Chemistry as the Earth's Structure is covered.
This 9-week geology unit starts with Earth Structure and ends with Earthquakes to tie into the anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake (6.9 magnitude) on October 17, 1989. Teachers will be able to use newspaper articles and other local events to connect students with this topic.
We recommend that you print this course outline then link to the web pages using the hard copy as a reference.
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Introductory Week (optional): What is Science?
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- Introduction to Class
- PI Activity 1A/Looking Forward
- Inquiry Activity
- PI Activity 1B/Some Branches of Science
- Inquiry Activity
Week 1: What is the Earth made of?
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- Introduction to the Earth
- Earth Structure
- Layers of Earth
- Properties (chemical vs. phyiscal)
- Compare/contrast layers
- Rocks and the Rock Cycle
- Building Blocks of Rocks
- Chemical composition
- Introduction to the Elements
- Element Samples
- PI Activity 3B/Classifying Elements
- Size of layers
- Reinforce metric system
- Plate Tectonics: Some Evidence
- Continental Drift (How can scientists tell that the Earth's plates are moving?)
- Continental Puzzle Activity (choose one)
- PI Activity 12B/Do the continents Fit Together?
- Fossil Evidence Map/Puzzle (Jen Fong has copy; Judy)
- PII Activity 12E/A Matching Puzzle
- What is the scientific method: hypothesis - theory - evidence
Week 2: What are fossils and how are they made?
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- Fossils
- What are fossils?
- How are fossils formed?
- Atomic structure
- Electron/neutron/proton
- Isotope
- Geologic Time
- Relative & Absolute Time
- Geologic time scale activity
- PII Activity 12C/Putting Things In Order
- Age dating methods
- Carbon dating
- Radioactive decay activity – beanium/pennium
- PII Activity 7C/How the Activity of a Radioactive Isotope Changes w/Time
- Radioactive decay activity – beanium/pennium
Week 3: What can you tell by looking at fossils?
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- Fossils
- Telling stories from fossils
- Inference activity
- PII Activity 12E/A Matching Puzzle
- Categorizing and organizing
- Great Fossil Find
- Periodic Table
- What is it used for?
- What can you tell by looking at it?
- How is it organized?
- PII Activity 8F/Meet The Elements
- PII Activity 9D/Ions, Combining Capacity, And Chemical Formulas
- What can you tell by looking at it?
Week 3: What does the bottom of the ocean look like?
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- Plate Tectonics: Some Evidence
- Sea Floor Spreading
- PI Activity 12E/Sea Floor Spreading
- Model of Sea Floor Spreading (from NSTA Earth Science)
- PI Activity 12C/Investigating Trenches
- Model of Sea Floor Spreading (from NSTA Earth Science)
- Computer lab
- Pangaea break-up animations
- Plate movement animations
- Driving Forces
- Convection Currents Lab
- Measuring Density
- States of Matter
- Measuring Density
Week 5: Why do the Plates of the Earth move?
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- Plate Tectonics: Theory
- Plate movement
- Edible Tectonics (from NSTA Earth Science)
- PI Activity 11B/Folding Rocks
- Discovering Plate Boundaries
- Mapping Plate Boundaries
- Sponge Demo for Divergent/Convergent Boundaries
- PI Activity 12F/Plate Tectonics
- PI Activity 11B/Folding Rocks
Week 6: What is a volcano?
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- Volcanoes
- Types and locations
- Magma and lava
- Volcano demo / video
- Forming volcanoes
- Types/examples
- Building Volcano Models
- PI Activity 11E/Mapping Mountains and Volcanoes
- "Ring of Fire"
- Eruptions
- PI Activity 11D/When Will Vesuvious Erupt Again?
- Jello Mold Eruption
- Hazards and Monitoring
Week 7: What is an earthquake?
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- Earthquakes
- Earthquakes and faults
- PI Activity 11F/Mapping Earthquakes
- Compare/contrast with volcanic activity
- Recent California Earthquakes
- "Plot that quake"
- Compare/contrast with volcanic activity
- Seismic waves
- P and S waves
- Properties of waves
- Slinky demo
- Wave activity \226 class wave activity
- PII Activity 13C/Earthquake Wave Models
- PII Activity 13E/Probing the Earth's Interior
- Properties of waves
Week 8: How do you measure earthquakes?
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- Earthquakes
- Measuring earthquakes
- Magnitude, Depth, Location
- Richter scale
- Reading seismograms
- Virtual Seismologist
- Richter scale
- Seismic Safety
- Earthquake video
- PII Activity 13B/Elastic Rebound
- Liquefaction demo
- PII Activity 13B/Elastic Rebound
Week 9: Why do some buildings collapse during earthquakes?
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- Earthquakes
- Seismic Safety
- What makes a building secure?
- Properties
- Designing a building
- Building structures
- Testing structures
Review week (optional)
Exam week (optional)