Amazing Earth Science (Chapters 10-12)

In school, Earth Science was one of my favorite things to learn about in the science curriculum.  I enjoy learning about why and how the things in the natural world happen around me.  10th grade earth science was a great experience for me and I learned a lot in it,  which is why I was excited to read about it for Science Methods. 

So many things happen around us and we don't even realize what is going on.  We live in such an incredible place, Planet Earth, that we should really know more about it!

One of the things that you learn about in Earth Science is about the layers of the Earth.   As I was reading, I realized that the layers of the earth are almost like peeling an onion.  The first layer is the crust, the second layer is the mantle, and the third layer is the core.  These layers are made up of a variety of materials.

Earth has a long history of life and that is where the debate of Creation and the Big Bang Theory come in. That topic needs its own blog post! However, Earth contains fossils which show evidence of different forms of life.  Archaeologists discover these fossils and study them to tell us the periods of times these life forms existed which helps scientists to determine the history of Earth.

The text we read also discusses Earth's atmosphere, which is a thin layer of constantly moving air around the Earth. In the atmosphere the water cycle is occurring: water vapor condenses to form clouds and sometimes water vapor precipitates into the earth (like rain or snow). All of this led into the weather that occurs on Earth.  Lately, the weather has been all out of whack. Because of climate change, Earth has gone through a lot of natural disaster such as hurricanes and earth quakes.  Violent weather is just another part of Earth science.  Hurricanes, tornadoes, winter storms, thunderstorms, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc. are all examples of violent weather.  Meteorologists study weather phenomena by using instruments such as barometers and hygrometers to measure the weather phenomena.  The information the meteorologists get from these instruments, they are able to make weather predictions which helps us plan to be prepared for whatever Mother Nature plans to bring on.

Chapter 11 in the text discussed the solar system and the universe, which is what we taught our fourth graders! A lot of the content that I read in this chapter was stuff that my fieldwork group taught the fourth graders.  I discuss my fieldwork groups' experience of teaching in my previous blog post "Time to Shine, Group 4!".  Scientists study space and they are able to make outstanding discoveries of things out there.  In the chapter, and from my observations of fieldwork groups and teaching, I learned about the solar system.  It includes the sun, the eight planets, meteors, asteroids, and comets.

Overtime, scientists at NASA have made discoveries using technology and overtime that technology has advanced greatly. The technology that NASA creates allows for people, and now even robots, to explore even more of space to make all kinds of new discoveries.  Some of the technology that the chapter discusses are the Hubble Space Telescope, space shuttles, Orion Multi - Purpose Crew Vehicle, and The International Space Station. Each of these pieces of technology, which are not even close to naming all of the technology that NASA has, help to further space exploration.

Last but certainly not least, Chapter 12 discusses how we can put all of the wonderful topics of Earth Science into lessons. Our students are natural wonderers and science is a topic where things can be found and brought into class.  As a teacher, when we plan our lessons, we need to make sure that we are flexible.  If our students bring something in to show the whole class, we need to incorporate them.  These little "gifts" are what our students see of the natural world and/or what the question.  As a class, we can work together to learn more about the gifts our students bring in.

Great science unit topics are commonly made up of Earth Science and space.  These topics are allow the students to experiment and investigate what they are learning.  While they are doing this, for some of the lessons they can also create diagrams, charts, etc. to show their findings/data.

Another great thing that the chapter discusses to use when teaching about Earth Science and space are WebQuests.  These are lessons where the students use digital resources to obtain their information and find their results of their topic. You can give the students particular words to search for and they can search them to gather their information.  The use of WebQuests are a great way to incorporate technology into your lesson and to teach your students good researching skills.

The chapter also discussed discovery centers as another way to teach science. What teacher doesn't love a good center? It allows the students to be independent and responsible for what they are learning, and it allows for the students to be engaged while they are doing it.  I also love this idea of discovery centers because it can be integrated into your literacy block during the day.  You can find a science discovery center that works well with literacy and integrate them together so that the students are using the skills of literacy but also learning about science.

Chapter 12 went on to discuss bulletin boards and going on field trips. Fun! It also gave so many different lesson plan ideas for all learners.

Reading chapter 12 definitely got me excited to teach lessons about Earth Science and space.  There are so many different ways to go about teaching these lessons and so many different things you can actually do.  Let the adventure begin!