ESS2.E

SCUSD NGSS Curriculum Guide ESS2.E - Biogeology

K-2 Grade Band
// Plants and animals (including humans) depend on the land, water, and air to live and grow. They in turn can change their environment (e.g., the shape of land, the flow of water). //

Performance Expectations:
==== K-ESS2-2: Construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals (including humans) can change the environment to meet their needs. [Clarification Statement: Examples of plants and animals changing their environment could include a squirrel digs in the ground to hide its food and tree roots can break concrete.] ====

3-5 Grade Band
// Living things affect the physical characteristics of their regions (e.g., plants’ roots hold soil in place, beaver shelters and human-built dams alter the flow of water, plants’ respiration affects the air). Many types of rocks and minerals are formed from the remains of organisms or are altered by their activities. //

Performance Expectations:
==== 4-ESS2-1: Make observations and/or measurements to provide evidence of the effects of weathering or the rate of erosion by water, ice, wind, or vegetation. [Clarification Statement: Examples of variables to test could include angle of slope in the downhill movement of water, amount of vegetation, speed of wind, relative rate of deposition, cycles of freezing and thawing of water, cycles of heating and cooling, and volume of water flow.] [//Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to a single form of weathering or erosion.//] ====

6-8 Grade Band
// Evolution is shaped by Earth’s varying geological conditions. Sudden changes in conditions (e.g., meteor impacts, major volcanic eruptions) have caused mass extinctions, but these changes, as well as more gradual ones, have ultimately allowed other life forms to flourish. The evolution and proliferation of living things over geological time have in turn changed the rates of weathering and erosion of land surfaces, altered the composition of Earth’s soils and atmosphere, and affected the distribution of water in the hydrosphere. //

9-12 Grade Band
// The many dynamic and delicate feedbacks between the biosphere and other Earth systems cause a continual co-evolution of Earth’s surface and the life that exists on it. //

Performance Expectations:
==== HS-ESS2-7: Construct an argument based on evidence about the simultaneous coevolution of Earth's systems and life on Earth.[Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on the dynamic causes, effects, and feedbacks between the biosphere and Earth’s other systems, whereby geoscience factors control the evolution of life, which in turn continuously alters Earth’s surface. Examples of include how photosynthetic life altered the atmosphere through the production of oxygen, which in turn increased weathering rates and allowed for the evolution of animal life; how microbial life on land increased the formation of soil, which in turn allowed for the evolution of land plants; or how the evolution of corals created reefs that altered patterns of erosion and deposition along coastlines and provided habitats for the evolution of new life forms.] [//Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms of how the biosphere interacts with all of Earth’s other systems//.] ====