Rocks Tell Us the Moon's Story
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Rocks Tell Us the Moon's Story

Correlations to National Science Standards

Grades K–4
Science as Inquiry – Content Standard A
Understanding About Scientific Inquiry

  • Simple instruments, such as magnifiers, thermometers, and rulers, provide more information than scientists obtain using only their senses.

Earth and Space Science – Content Standard D
Properties of earth materials

  • Earth materials are solid rocks and soils, water, and the gases of the atmosphere.
  • Soils have properties of color and texture, capacity to retain water, and ability to support the growth of many kinds of plants, including those in our food supply.

Objects in the Sky

  • The sun, moon, stars, clouds, birds, and airplanes all have properties, locations, and movements that can be observed and described.

Changes in the Earth and Sky

  • The surface of Earth changes. Some changes are due to slow processes, such as erosion and weathering, and some changes are due to rapid processes, such as landslides, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes — and impacts!

Science and Technology – Content Standard E
Understandings about Science and Technology

  • Tools help scientists make better observations, measurements, and equipment for investigations. They help scientists see, measure, and do things that they could not otherwise see, measure, and do.

Grades 5–8
Earth and Space Science – Content Standard D
Structure of the Earth System

  • Some changes in the solid earth can be described as the "rock cycle." Old rocks at the earth's surface weather, forming sediments that are buried, then compacted, heated, and often recrystallized into new rock. Eventually, those new rocks may be brought to the surface by the forces that drive plate motions, and the rock cycle continues.
  • Soil consists of weathered rocks and decomposed organic material from dead plants, animals, and bacteria. Soils are often found in layers, with each having a different chemical composition and texture.

Earth's History

  • 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.

Earth in the Solar System

  • The earth is the third planet from the sun in a system that includes the moon.

 

Last updated
May 4, 2011

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