Sculpting the Earth - CA - Sixth Grade

Sculpting the Earth
A Classrooms Unleashed Program
for Sixth Grade Students

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Sculpting the Earth focuses on the various types of geologic change to the Earth’s crust. Students become geologists and learn about how plate movements cause earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mountain formation. In addition, they learn about how rivers are formed and how boulders are weathered down into pebbles. In addition to a 3.5-hour field study at Deer Creek Hills Nature Preserve, we provide two, 90-minute classes as part of the Sculpting the Earth program. 

All of our lessons are backwards designed from Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core for sixth grade. In addition to the Sierra Nevada Journeys-led lessons, classroom teachers will be provided with 3-4 easy-to-use learning experiences to reinforce concepts and vocabulary, as well as pre- and post-assessments.


PROGRAM OVERVIEW

LESSON 1: CHANGES BENEATH OUR FEET

During this 90-minute classroom lesson, use maps, diagrams and images, to look for clues to explain why earthquakes happen in some places and not in others. Students construct an understanding of plate tectonics, including the plate movements that cause earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain formation and seafloor spreading.

LESSON 2: RIVER CARVERS

At this 90-minute classroom lesson, students investigate why some rivers carve deep canyons, like the Colorado River, while others are wide with various channels carving shallow paths in valleys, like the Sacramento River. Through a hands-on investigation, they change variables in an attempt to create a deep, canyon-cutting river, and in the process come to an understanding of erosion, sediment and deposition.

LESSON 3: GEOLGISTS IN THE FIELD

This 3.5-hour field study Deer Creek Hills Nature Preserve in Sloughhouse, students use their observation skills to explore the outdoors and document evidence of weathering and erosion — as a real and natural process — in the field.


TEACHER INFORMATION

NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS 

MS-ESS2-2: SEP: Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions; DCI: Earth’s Materials and Systems; CC: Scale Proportion and Quantity

COMMON CORE 

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.7
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.7


In partnership with:

 
 
Translation Services USA