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Students collaborate in groups of 2-3 to review factors that affect deposition of particles.

For nearly five billion years, the Earth's surface has been constantly built up and broken down by processes taking place above and below the Earth's surface, resulting in the wide range of beautiful and complex landscapes we see today. In this unit, students will continue to make connections between the Earth's systems when they study interactions between the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere by investigating the rock cycle, and the erosional processes of streams, wind, wave action, and mass movement.

Students will engage in a hands on lab activity that will allow them to make observations of different types of weathering and erosion in action.

Using evidence from a samples of rock collected at two different monuments on Earth, the ESRT, and activities from class, develop a scientific claim about which monument is in most immediate need of repair, and support this claim with specific evidence referenced from this unit.

The dynamic nature of streams is vital to civilizations, providing civilizations with drinking water and water for farming. Running water transports more material on Earth's surface than any other agent of erosion. In this 5E sequence students learn about the patterns of erosional-depositional systems in streams through observations of a stream table. Students will also work to develop their own explanation as to how rivers and streams work to constantly alter the surface of Earth.

Students will explore the processes associated with stream erosion by observing an actual small-scale erosional-depositional system.

Students will explore the processes associated with stream erosion by observing an actual small-scale erosional-depositional system.

Students make predictions and learn about different forms of weathering and erosion through a series of models.

Students learn about mechanical weathering, chemical weathering, and erosion by modeling a range of weathering and erosional processes and sorting them into categories. Students then read a text about the difference between mechanical weathering, chemical weathering, and erosion and use this understanding to make evidence based claims about the kind of surface processes they modeled in the explore phase and to explain how sinkholes are formed. Finally, students learn about factors that affect weathering rates and use that understanding to explain how another surface feature was formed.