Describing our home and how it got to be this way.
Home; Sweet Home
1.2.4. Analyze the patterns and arrangements of Earth systems and subsystems including the core, the mantle, tectonic plates, the hydrosphere, and layers of the atmosphere.
Identify and describe sources of Earth's internal and external thermal energy. Explain how plate tectonics is caused by Earth's internal energy (e.g., nuclear energy from radioactivity in the core transforms to thermal energy in the mantle that, through convection, causes the motion of tectonic plates). Correlate Earth's surface features to observable weather patterns (e.g., rain shadow, deserts, rain forest).
1.3.6. Analyze the factors that influence weather and climate.
Explain how energy transfers and transformations among the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and landforms affect climate and weather patterns. Explain how greenhouse gases in the atmosphere affect climate (e.g., global warming). Describe how catastrophic events (e.g., volcanic eruptions, forest fires, asteroid impacts) can cause climate and weather changes.
1.3.4. Analyze processes that have caused changes to the features of Earth's surface, including plate tectonics.
Describe the processes that cause the movement of material in Earth's systems (e.g., pressure differences that cause convection resulting in winds, mantle movement, and ocean currents; erosion and deposition). Describe the effects of glaciation and floods on the Pacific Northwest. Describe the causes and effects of volcanoes, hot spots, and earthquakes in Washington State and elsewhere (e.g., subduction of the Juan de Fuca plate causes earthquakes that may cause seismic sea waves; earthquakes along the Seattle fault cause P, S, and surface seismic waves). Explain how substances change as they move through Earth's systems (e.g., carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, burning of wood and fossil fuels).
1.1.5. Understand and analyze how the chemical composition of Earth materials (rocks, soils, water, and air) is related to their physical properties.
Correlate the chemical composition of Earth materials (i.e., rocks, soils, water, and gases of the atmosphere) with their physical properties (e.g., limestone reaction to acid, the conductivity of copper, ice floats on water).
1.3.5. Analyze a variety of evidence, including rock formations, fossils, and radioactive decay, to construct a sequence of geologic events.
Explain how decay rates of radioactive materials in rock layers are used to establish the age of fossil remains or the time of geologic events. Describe how rock formations can be used to determine the nature of past geologic events. Correlate evidence of geologic events to the relative and absolute dates of rock layers to construct a sequence of the history of Earth.