Concept Map and Standards

Concept Map

2d: Students know earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and floods change human and wildlife habitats.
5e: Students know the number and types of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and on abiotic factors, such as quantities of light and water, a range of temperatures, and soil composition.
7. Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations.
Earthquakes may cause damage that disrupts people’s lives.

3e: Students know that extinction of a species occurs when the environment changes and the adaptive characteristics of a species are insufficient for its survival.
4e: Students know fossils provide evidence of how life and environmental conditions have changed.
4g: Students know how to explain significant developments and extinctions of plant and animal life on the geologic time scale.
7: Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations.

3c: Students know how to explain the properties of rocks based on the physical and chemical conditions in which they formed, including plate tectonic processes.
6c: Students know how Earth's climate has changed over time, corresponding to changes in Earth's geography, atmospheric composition, and other factors, such as solar radiation and plate movement.

6b: Students know how to analyze changes in an ecosystem resulting from changes in climate, human activity, introduction of nonnative species, or changes in population size
8e: Students know how to analyze fossil evidence with regard to biological diversity, episodic speciation, and mass extinction.

Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations.

Students solve problems involving fractions, ratios, proportions, and percentages.
Students calculate and solve problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Students analyze and use tables, graphs, and rules to solve problems.
Students compute the perimeter, area, and volume of common geometric objects and use the results to find measures of less common objects.
Students compute and analyze statistical measurements for data sets.
Students make decisions about how to approach problems.
Students use strategies, skills, and concepts in finding solutions.
Students organize and describe distributions of data by using a number of different methods.

Students read and understand grade-level-appropriate material.
Students write clear, coherent, and focused essays.
Students write narrative, expository, persuasive, and descriptive texts
Students write and speak with a command of standard English conventions appropriate to grade level.
Students deliver focused, coherent presentations that convey ideas clearly and relate to the background and interests of the audience.
Students deliver well-organized formal presentations.

The earth processes we see today, including erosion, movement of lithospheric plates, and changes in atmospheric composition, are similar to those that occurred in the past. Earth history is also influenced by occasional catastrophes, such as the impact of an asteroid or comet.
Fossils provide important evidence of how life and environmental conditions have changed

Extinction of a species occurs when the environment changes and the adaptive characteristics of a species are insufficient to allow its survival. Fossils indicate that many organisms that lived long ago are extinct.

Natural hazards can present personal and societal challenges because misidentifying the change or incorrectly estimating the rate and scale of change may result in either too little attention and significant human costs or too much cost for unneeded preventive measures.

Scientists formulate and test their explanations of nature using observation, experiments, and theoretical and mathematical models. Although all scientific ideas are tentative and subject to change and improvement in principle, for most major ideas in science, there is much experimental and observational confirmation. Those ideas are not likely to change greatly in the future. Scientists do and have changed their ideas about nature when they encounter new experimental evidence that does not match their existing explanations.
It is part of scientific inquiry to evaluate the results of scientific investigations, experiments, observations, theoretical models, and the explanations proposed by other scientists.

Interactions among the solid earth, the oceans, the atmosphere, and organisms have resulted in the ongoing evolution of the earth system.

Some hazards, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and severe weather, are rapid and spectacular. But there are slow and progressive changes that also result in problems for individuals and societies. For example, change in stream channel position, erosion of bridge foundations, sedimentation in lakes and harbors, coastal erosions, and continuing erosion and wasting of soil and landscapes can all negatively affect society.
Natural and human-induced hazards present the need for humans to assess potential danger and risk. Many changes in the environment designed by humans bring benefits to society, as well as cause risks.

Science distinguishes itself from other ways of knowing and from other bodies of knowledge through the use of empirical standards, logical arguments, and skepticism, as scientists strive for the best possible explanations about the natural world.
Because all scientific ideas depend on experimental and observational confirmation, all scientific knowledge is, in principle, subject to change as new evidence becomes available. In areas where data or understanding are incomplete, such as the details of human evolution or questions surrounding global warming, new data may well lead to changes in current ideas or resolve current conflicts.
The historical perspective of scientific explanations demonstrates how scientific knowledge changes by evolving over time, almost always building on earlier knowledge.