Earth Science Objectives



State of Ohio Science Standards Earth and Space Sciences
Grade: K Earth and Space Sciences Processes That Shape Earth Standard Number: 2. Explore that animals and plants cause changes to their surroundings. Standard Number: 3. Explore that sometimes change is too fast to see and sometimes change is too slow to see. Standard Number: 4. Observe and describe day-to-day weather changes (e.g., today is hot, yesterday we had rain). Standard Number: 5. Observe and describe seasonal changes in weather. The Universe Standard Number: 1. Observe that the Sun can be seen only in the daytime, but the Moon can be seen sometimes at night and sometimes during the day. Grade: Gr. 1 Earth and Space Sciences Earth Systems Standard Number: 1. Identify that resources are things that we get from the living (e.g., forests) and nonliving (e.g., minerals, water) environment and that resources are necessary to meet the needs and wants of a population. Standard Number: 2. Explain that the supply of many resources is limited but the supply can be extended through careful use, decreased use, reusing and/or recycling. Processes That Shape Earth Standard Number: 3. Explain that all organisms cause changes in the environment where they live; the changes can be very noticeable or slightly noticeable, fast or slow. (e.g., spread of grass cover slowing soil erosion, tree roots slowly breaking sidewalks). Grade: Gr. 2 Earth and Space Sciences Earth Systems Standard Number: 4. Observe and describe that some weather changes occur throughout the day and some changes occur in a repeating seasonal pattern. Standard Number: 5. Describe weather by measurable quantities such as temperature and precipitation. The Universe Standard Number: 1. Recognize that there are more stars in the sky than anyone can easily count. Standard Number: 2. Observe and describe how the Sun, Moon and stars all appear to move slowly across the sky. Standard Number: 3. Observe and describe how the Moon appears a little different every day but looks nearly the same again about every four weeks. Grade: Gr. 3 Earth and Space Sciences Earth Systems Standard Number: 1. Compare distinct properties of rocks (e.g., color, layering, texture). Standard Number: 2. Observe and investigate that rocks are often found in layers. Standard Number: 3. Describe that smaller rocks come from the breakdown of larger rocks through the actions of plants and weather. Standard Number: 4. Observe and describe the composition of soil (e.g., small pieces of rock and decomposed pieces of plants and animals, and products of plants and animals). Standard Number: 5. Investigate the properties of soil (e.g., color, texture, capacity to retain water, ability to support plant growth). Standard Number: 6. Investigate that soils are often found in layers and can be different from place to place. Grade: Gr. 4 Earth and Space Sciences Earth Systems Standard Number: 1. Explain that air surrounds us, takes up space, moves around us as wind, and may be measured using barometric pressure. Standard Number: 2. Identify how water exists in the air in different forms (e.g., in clouds, fog, rain, snow and hail). Standard Number: 3. Investigate how water changes from one state to another (e.g., freezing, melting, condensation, evaporation). Standard Number: 4. Describe weather by measurable quantities such as temperature, wind direction, wind speed, precipitation, and barometric pressure. Standard Number: 5. Record local weather information on a calendar or map and describe changes over a period of time (e.g., barometric pressure, temperature, precipitation symbols, cloud conditions). Standard Number: 6. Trace how weather patterns generally move from west to east in the United States. Standard Number: 7. Describe the weather which accompanies cumulus, cumulonimbus, cirrus and stratus clouds. Processes That Shape Earth Standard Number: 8. Describe how wind, water and ice shape and reshape Earthís land surface by eroding rock and soil in some areas and depositing them in other areas producing characteristic landforms (e.g., dunes, deltas, glacial moraines). Standard Number: 9. Identify and describe how freezing, thawing and plant growth reshape the land surface by causing the weathering of rock. Standard Number: 10. Describe evidence of changes on Earthís surface in terms of slow processes (e.g., erosion, weathering, mountain building, deposition) and rapid processes (e.g. volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides). Grade: Gr. 5 Earth and Space Sciences Earth Systems Standard Number: 5. Explain how the supply of many non-renewable resources is limited and can be extended through reducing, reusing and recycling but cannot be extended indefinitely. Standard Number: 6. Investigate ways Earth's renewable resources (e.g., fresh water, air, wildlife and trees) can be maintained. The Universe Standard Number: 1. Describe how night and day are caused by Earth's rotation. Standard Number: 2. Explain that Earth is one of several planets to orbit the Sun, and that the Moon orbits Earth. Standard Number: 3. Describe the characteristics of Earth and its orbit about the Sun (e.g., three-fourths of Earth's surface covered by a layer of water [some of it frozen], the entire planet surrounded by a thin blanket of air, elliptical orbit, tilted axis, spherical planet). Standard Number: 4. Explain that stars are like Sun, some being smaller and some larger, but so far away that they look like points of light. Grade: Gr. 6 Earth and Space Sciences Earth Systems Standard Number: 1. Describe the rock cycle and explain that there are sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks that have distinct properties (e.g., color, texture) and are formed in different ways. Standard Number: 2. Explain that rocks are made of one or more minerals. Standard Number: 3. Identify minerals by their characteristic properties. Grade: Gr. 7 Earth and Space Sciences Earth Systems Standard Number: 1. Explain the biogeochemical cycles which move materials between the lithosphere (land), hydrosphere (water) and atmosphere (air). Standard Number: 2. Explain that Earthís capacity to absorb and recycle materials naturally (e.g., smoke, smog, sewage) can change the environmental quality depending on the length of time involved (e.g. global warming). Standard Number: 3. Describe the water cycle and explain the transfer of energy between the atmosphere and hydrosphere. Standard Number: 4. Analyze data on the availability of fresh water that is essential for life and for most industrial and agricultural processes. Describe how rivers, lakes and groundwater can be depleted or polluted becoming less hospitable to life and even becoming unavailable or unsuitable for life. Standard Number: 5. Make simple weather predictions based on the changing cloud types associated with frontal systems. Standard Number: 6. Determine how weather observations and measurements are combined to produce weather maps and that data for a specific location at one point in time can be displayed in a station model. Standard Number: 7. Read a weather map to interpret local, regional and national weather. Standard Number: 8. Describe how temperature and precipitation determine climatic zones (biomes) (e.g., desert, grasslands, forests, tundra, alpine). Standard Number: 9. Describe the connection between the water cycle and weather-related phenomenon (e.g., tornadoes, floods, droughts, hurricanes). Grade: Gr. 8 Earth and Space Sciences Earth Systems Standard Number: 9. Describe the interior structure of Earth and Earthís crust as divided into tectonic plates riding on top of the slow moving currents of magma in the mantle. Standard Number: 10. Explain that most major geological events (e.g., earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hot spots and mountain building) result from plate motion. Standard Number: 11. Use models to analyze the size and shape of Earth, its surface and its interior (e.g., globes, topographic maps, satellite images). Standard Number: 12. Explain that some processes involved in the rock cycle are directly related to thermal energy and forces in the mantle that drive plate motions. Standard Number: 13. Describe how landforms are created through a combination of destructive (e.g., weathering and erosion) and constructive processes (e.g., crustal deformation, volcanic eruptions and deposition of sediment). Standard Number: 14. Explain that folding, faulting and uplifting can rearrange the rock layers so the youngest is not always found on top. Standard Number: 15. Illustrate how the three primary types of plate boundaries (transform, divergent and convergent) cause different landforms (e.g., mountains, volcanoes, ocean trenches). The Universe Standard Number: 1. Describe how objects in the Solar System are in regular and predictable motions that explain such phenomena as days, years, seasons, eclipses, tides and moon cycles. Standard Number: 2. Explain that gravitational force is the dominant force determining motions in the Solar System and in particular keeps the planets in orbit around the Sun. Standard Number: 3. Compare the orbits and composition of comets and asteroids with that of Earth. Standard Number: 4. Describe the effect that asteroids or meteoroids have when moving through space and sometimes entering planetary atmospheres (e.g., meteor- ìshooting starî and meteorite). Standard Number: 5. Explain that the universe consists of billions of galaxies that are classified by shape. Standard Number: 6. Explain interstellar distances are measured in light years (e.g., the nearest star beyond the sun is 4.3 light years away). Standard Number: 7. Examine the life cycle of a star and predict the next likely stage of a star. Standard Number: 8. Name and describe tools used to study the universe (e.g., telescopes, probes, satellites and spacecraft). Grade: Gr. 9 Earth and Space Sciences Earth Systems Standard Number: 4. Explain the relationships of the oceans to the lithosphere and atmosphere (e.g., transfer of energy, ocean currents, landforms). Historical Perspectives and Scientific Revolutions Standard Number: 8. Use historical examples to explain how new ideas are limited by the context in which they are conceived; are often initially rejected by the scientific establishment; sometimes spring from unexpected findings; and usually grow slowly through contributions from many different investigators (e.g., heliocentric theory and plate tectonics theory). Processes that Shape Earth Standard Number: 5. Explain how the slow movement of material within Earth results from a. thermal energy transfer (conduction and convection) from the deep interior b. the action of gravitational forces on regions of different density Standard Number: 6. Explain the results of plate tectonic activity (e.g., magma generation, igneous intrusion, metamorphism, volcanic action, earthquakes, faulting and folding). Standard Number: 7. Explain sea-floor spreading and continental drift using scientific evidence (e.g., fossil distributions, magnetic reversals and radiometric dating). The Universe Standard Number: 1. Describe that stars produce energy from nuclear reactions and that processes in stars have led to the formation of all elements beyond hydrogen and helium. Standard Number: 2. Describe the current scientific evidence that supports the theory of the explosive expansion of the universe, the Big Bang, over 10 billion years ago. Standard Number: 3. Explain that gravitational forces govern the characteristics and movement patterns of the planets, comets and asteroids in the Solar System. Grade: Gr. 10 Earth and Space Sciences Earth Systems Standard Number: 1. Summarize the relationship between the climatic zone and the resultant biomes. (This includes explaining the nature of the rainfall and temperature of the mid-latitude climatic zone that supports the deciduous forest.) Standard Number: 2. Explain climate and weather patterns associated with certain geographic locations and features (e.g., tornado alley, tropical hurricanes and lake effect snow). Standard Number: 3. Explain how geologic time can be estimated by multiple methods (e.g., rock sequences, fossil correlation, radiometric dating). Standard Number: 4. Describe how organisms on Earth contributed to the dramatic change in oxygen content of Earthís early atmosphere. Standard Number: 5. Explain how the acquisition and use of resources, urban growth and waste disposal can accelerate natural change and impact the quality of life. Standard Number: 6. Describe ways that human activity can alter biogeochemical cycles (e.g., carbon and nitrogen cycles) as well as food webs and energy pyramids (e.g., pest control, legume rotation crops vs. chemical fertilizers). Historical Perspectives and Scientific Revolutions Standard Number: 7. Describe advances and issues in Earth and space science that have important long-lasting effects on science and society (e.g., geologic time scales, global warming, depletion of resources, exponential population growth). Grade: Gr. 11 Earth and Space Sciences Earth Systems Standard Number: 2. Analyze how the regular and predictable motions of Earth, Sun and Moon explain phenomena on Earth (e.g., seasons, tides, eclipses and phases of the Moon). Standard Number: 3. Explain heat and energy transfers in and out of the atmosphere and its involvement in weather and climate (radiation, conduction, convection and advection). Standard Number: 4. Explain the impact of oceanic and atmospheric currents on weather and climate. Standard Number: 5. Use appropriate data to analyze and predict upcoming trends in global weather patterns (e.g., el Niño and la Niña, melting glaciers and icecaps, changes in ocean surface temperatures). Standard Number: 6. Explain how interactions among Earthís lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere have resulted in the ongoing changes of Earthís system. Standard Number: 7. Describe the effects of particulates and gases in the atmosphere including those originating from volcanic activity. Standard Number: 8. Describe the normal adjustments of Earth, which may be hazardous for humans. Recognize that humans live at the interface between the atmosphere driven by solar energy and the upper mantle where convection creates changes in Earth's solid crust. Realize that as societies have grown, become stable and come to value aspects of the environment, vulnerability to natural processes of change has increased. Standard Number: 9. Explain the effects of biomass and human activity on climate (e.g., climatic change, global warming). Standard Number: 10. Interpret weather maps and their symbols to predict changing weather conditions worldwide (e.g., monsoons, hurricanes and cyclones). Standard Number: 11. Analyze how materials from human societies (e.g., radioactive waste, air pollution) affect both physical and chemical cycles of Earth. Standard Number: 12. Explain ways in which humans have had a major effect on other species (e.g., the influence of humans on other organisms occurs through land use, which decreases space available to other species and pollution, which changes the chemical composition of air, soil and water). Standard Number: 13. Explain how human behavior affects the basic processes of natural ecosystems and the quality of the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere. Standard Number: 14. Conclude that Earth has finite resources and explain that humans deplete some resources faster than they can be renewed. Historical Perspectives And Scientific Revolutions Standard Number: 15. Use historical examples to show how new ideas are limited by the context in which they are conceived; are often rejected by the social establishment; sometimes spring from unexpected findings; and usually grow slowly through contributions from many different investigators (e.g., global warming, Heliocentric Theory, Theory of Continental Drift). Standard Number: 16. Describe advances in Earth and space science that have important longlasting effects on science and society (e.g., global warming, heliocentric theory, plate tectonics theory). The Universe Standard Number: 1. Describe how the early Earth was different from the planet we live on today, and explain the formation of the Sun, Earth and the rest of the Solar System from a nebular cloud of dust and gas approximately 4.5 billion years ago. Grade: Gr. 12 Earth and Space Sciences Earth Systems Standard Number: 5. Investigate how thermal energy transfers in the worldís oceans impact physical features (e.g., ice caps, oceanic and atmospheric currents) and weather patterns. Standard Number: 6. Describe how scientists estimate how much of a given resource is available on Earth. The Universe Standard Number: 1. Explain how scientists obtain information about the universe by using technology to detect electromagnetic radiation that is emitted, reflected or absorbed by stars and other objects. Standard Number: 2. Explain how the large-scale motion of objects in the universe is governed by gravitational forces and detected by observing electromagnetic radiation. Standard Number: 3. Explain how information about the universe is inferred by understanding that stars and other objects in space emit, reflect or absorb electromagnetic radiation, which we then detect. Standard Number: 4. Explain how astronomers infer that the whole universe is expanding by understanding how light seen from distant galaxies has longer apparent wavelengths than comparable light sources close to Earth.

State of Ohio Science Standards

Earth and Space Sciences