Phenomena, standards, and progressions

Earth and Space Science

The Amplify Science units can be arranged at the discretion of the individual school, but suggested sequences are available. The Earth and space science program in the suggested sequence below progressively builds students’ abilities to meet all the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) grade-level performance expectations through a three-dimensional instructional sequence. The following is an overview of the sample sequence of units, a description of the progression of student learning across the year, and a summary of how the sequence meets all NGSS performance expectations for grade 6.

Scroll down to see the phenomenon, student role, and performance expectations by unit, or click to jump to the Progression and Organization, Disciplinary Core Ideas, Crosscutting Concepts Core Ideas, or Science and Engineering Practices.

Sequence of units

  • Geology on Mars
  • Plate Motion
  • Plate Motion Engineering Internship
  • Rock Transformations
  • Earth, Moon, and Sun
  • Ocean, Atmosphere, and Climate
  • Weather Patterns
  • Earth’s Changing Climate
  • Earth’s Changing Climate Engineering Internship

 

Geology on Mars

Analyzing data about landforms on Mars can provide evidence that Mars may have once been habitable.
As planetary geologists, students analyze data about geoscience processes on the surface of Mars, in order to decide whether Mars could have been habitable.
  • ESS1-3: Scale in the Solar System
  • ESS2-2: Geoscience Processes

Plate Motion

Mesosaurus fossils have been found on continents separated by thousands of kilometers of ocean, even though the Mesosaurus species once lived all together.
Students play the role of geologists working for the fictional Museum of West Namibia to investigate Mesosaurus fossils found both in southern Africa and in South America.
  • ESS1-4: Strata and Earth Age
  • ESS2-2: Geoscience Processes
  • ESS2-3: Evidence for Plate Motion

Plate Motion Engineering Internship

Patterns in earthquake data can be used to design an effective tsunami warning system.
Students act as geohazard engineering interns to design a tsunami warning system. Students communicate like engineers and scientists do as they use their understanding of plate motion and patterns in data to create and justify their designs.
  • ESS3-2: Natural Hazards
  • ETS1-1: Criteria and Constraints
  • ETS1-2: Evaluating Solutions
  • ETS1-3: Analyzing Results
  • ETS1-4: Modeling and Iterative Testing
  • ESS2-2: Geoscience Processes
  • ESS2-3: Evidence for Plate Motion

Rock Transformations

Rock samples from the Great Plains and from the Rocky Mountains — regions hundreds of miles apart — look very different, but have surprisingly similar mineral compositions.
As geologists, students investigate different ways rocks form and change. Using their new understanding, they explain how rock transformation processes caused rock material from the Rocky Mountains to eventually become part of the Great Plains.
  • ESS2-1: Earth's Materials
  • ESS2-2: Geoscience Processes
  • ESS3-1: Distribution of Natural Resources
  • ESS1-3: Scale in the Solar System
  • ESS2-3: Evidence for Plate Motion

Earth, Moon, and Sun

An astrophotographer can only take pictures of specific features on the Moon at certain times.
Students play the role of student astronomers who must learn about the Earth, Moon, Sun system, including phases and eclipses, in order to advise an astrophotographer who is photographing Moon features.
  • ESS1-1: Earth, Sun, Moon System
  • ESS1-2: Gravity
  • ESS1-3: Scale in the Solar System
  • PS2-4: Gravity Depends on Mass

Ocean, Atmosphere, and Climate

During El Niño years, the air temperature in Christchurch, New Zealand is cooler than usual.
As climatologists, students must explain the pattern of temperature changes in El Niño years, which are impacting agriculture around the Pacific. They learn about how sunlight, ocean, and atmosphere interact to produce regional climate.
  • ESS2-6: Climate Patterns
  • PS1-4: Phase Change
  • PS3-3: Thermal Energy Transfer
  • ESS2-3: Evidence for Plate Motion
  • ESS2-5: Air Masses
  • ESS3-2: Natural Hazards

Weather Patterns

In recent years, rainstorms in Galetown have been unusually severe.
Students play the role of forensic meteorologists who must explain why powerful storms have increased after a manmade lake was built. They learn how air masses, water, and energy from the Sun produce weather phenomena.
  • ESS2-4: The Water Cycle
  • ESS2-5: Air Masses
  • PS1-4: Phase Change
  • PS3-3: Thermal Energy Transfer
  • ESS2-1: Earth's Materials
  • ESS2-6: Climate Patterns
  • ESS3-2: Natural Hazards

Earth’s Changing Climate

The ice on Earth’s surface is melting.
In their role as climatologists, students must explain why Earth’s ice is melting. They learn about how changes in the atmosphere are affecting the energy balance in the Earth’s system, and about humans’ role in these changes.
  • ESS3-3: Designs to Minimize Impact
  • ESS3-4: Human Population
  • ESS3-5: Factors for Global Temperature
  • LS2-1: Resources and Populations
  • LS2-4: Changes Affect Populations
  • ESS3-2: Natural Hazards

Earth’s Changing Climate Engineering Internship

Designing rooftops with different modifications can reduce a city’s impact on climate change.
As civil engineering interns, students apply design and engineering concepts as they create a plan for making changes to building rooftops. Their goal is to make a city more energy efficient, and thus reduce the carbon dioxide produced from combustion.
  • ESS3-3: Designs to Minimize Impact
  • ETS1-1: Criteria and Constraints
  • ETS1-2: Evaluating Solutions
  • ETS1-3: Analyzing Results
  • ETS1-4: Modeling and Iterative Testing
  • PS4-2: Waves Interact with Materials
  • ESS3-5: Factors for Global Temperature

Progression and organization

The units in the Earth and space science course, which occurs in grade 6 in the suggested sequence, are designed and sequenced to build students’ expertise with the grade-level disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), science and engineering practices (SEPs) and crosscutting concepts (CCCs). The sixth grade year begins with a launch unit, Geology on Mars, in which students are introduced to essential practices, routines, and approaches that will serve as touchstones for learning in all units that follow. An important example of this is the SEP of Engaging in Argument from Evidence. Students are introduced to the practice of scientific argumentation in the launch unit, then build on this understanding through the year, with each unit focusing more in-depth on one aspect of the practice. The Geology on Mars unit also introduces students to important practices and content foundational to earth science, such as the understanding that Earth is a system that involves interacting spheres (hydrosphere, geosphere, atmosphere, biosphere); students use this concept in subsequent units throughout the year.

Concepts and practices are connected across grade 6. For example, students are introduced to the idea of tectonic motion in the Plate Motion unit, then extend this understanding to make sense of natural hazards in the Plate Motion Engineering Internship unit, and to understand changes to rock formations due to subduction and uplift in the Rock Transformations unit. Across the Ocean, Atmosphere, and Climate; Weather Patterns; Earth’s Changing Climate; and Earth’s Changing Climate Engineering Internship unit, students build an increasingly complex understanding of how energy flow in the Earth system affects weather, regional climate, and the global climate. Crosscutting concepts also build across the year, so that students have many contexts in which to learn about and apply them. An example is the crosscutting concept of patterns, which is strongly emphasized in the Plate Motion unit as students discover patterns in map data. The Plate Motion Engineering Internship, Earth, Moon and Sun, and Ocean, Atmosphere and Climate units offer more exposure to this crosscutting concept, providing students with opportunities to deepen their understanding of it. Through the two engineering units in the sixth grade sequence, students also learn about the practices and crosscutting concepts associated with engineering. The Earth’s Changing Climate Engineering Internship unit follows the Earth’s Changing Climate unit and requires students to apply what they learned in the Earth’s Changing Climate unit to design a solution to an engineering problem. The same relationship is true of the Plate Motion Engineering Internship unit and the Plate Motion unit.

Each unit has a particular emphasis on certain DCIs, CCC’s, and SEP’s, with the combinations that work together to support deep explanations of the anchor phenomenon of each unit. For example, in the Weather Patterns unit, investigating the cause of more frequent severe storms leads students to construct ideas about Cycling of Water through Earth’s Systems (DCI ESS2-4) and Air Masses and Weather Patterns (DCI ESS2-5). The use of the SEP of modeling and the CCC of Stability and Change serve to help students better understand something difficult to observe directly: the way energy transfers between air.

Unit abbreviations: Geology on Mars (GOM), Plate Motion (PM), Plate Motion Engineering Internship (PM EI), Rock Transformations (RT), Earth, Moon, and Sun (EMS), Ocean Atmosphere and Climate (OAC), Weather Patterns (WP), Earth’s Changing Climate (ECC), Earth’s Changing Climate Engineering Internship (ECC EI).

Disciplinary core ideas

Focal   Other Emphasized

GOM PM PM EI RT EMS OAC WP ECC ECC EI
ESS1.A: The Universe and Its Stars (MS-ESS1-1)
ESS1.B: Earth and the Solar System (MS-ESS1-1)
ESS1.C: The History of Planet Earth (MS-ESS1-4)
ESS2.A: Earth’s Materials and Systems (MS-ESS2-1, MS-ESS2-2)
ESS2.B: Plate Tectonics and Large-Scale System Interactions (MS-ESS2-3)
ESS2.C: The Roles of Water in Earth’s Surface Processes (MS-ESS2-2, MS-ESS2-4, MS-ESS2-5, MS-ESS2-6)
ESS2.D: Weather and Climate (MS-ESS2-5, MS-ESS2-6)
ESS3.A: Natural Resources (MS-ESS3-1)
ESS3.B: Natural Hazards (MS-ESS3-2)
ESS3.C: Human Impacts on Earth Systems (MS-ESS3-3, MS-ESS3-4)
ESS3.D: Global Climate Change (MS-ESS3-5)
ETS1.A: Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems (MS-ETS1-1)
ETS1.B: Developing Possible Solutions (MS-ETS1-2, MS-ETS1-3, MS-ETS1-4)
ETS1.C: Optimizing the Design Solution (MS-ETS1-3, MS-ETS1-4)

Crosscutting concepts

Focal   Other Emphasized   Additional

GOM PM PM EI RT EMS OAC WP ECC ECC EI
Patterns
Cause and Effect
Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
Systems and System Models
Energy and Matter
Stability and Change
Structure and Function  

Science and engineering practices

Focal   Other Emphasized   Additional

  GOM PM PM EI RT EMS OAC WP ECC ECC EI
Asking Questions and Defining Problems
Developing and Using Models
Planning and Carrying Out Investigations
Analyzing and Interpreting Data
Using and Mathematics and Computational Thinking
Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions
Engaging in Argument from Evidence
Obtaining, Evaluating and Communicating Information