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Unit #: 3 – Interacting Earth Systems

Grade: 5

Unit of Study: Interacting Earth Systems

PE’s: 5-ESS2-1 5-ESS2-2 5-ESS3-1 3-5-ETS1-1 3-5-ETS1-2

Storyline: Students make models of the flow of energy and matter at the scale of the entire planet, and obtain information about a few example phenomena. They describe these phenomena in terms of interactions between different systems within the broader Earth system. They use their models to understand how humans impact these systems and develop solutions to minimize these effects.

DCI’s: ESS2.A ESS2.C ESS3.C ETS1.A ETS1.B

Anchoring Phenomena: Earth systems interact and are change by natural and human impact.

SEP’s: Developing and Using Models Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking Asking Questions and Defining Problems Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

Essential Questions: 1. How can we represent systems as complicated as the entire planet?

2. Where does my tap water come from and where does it go? 3. How much water do we need to live, to irrigate plants?

CC’s: Systems and System Models Scale Proportion and Quantity

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4. How much water do we have?

5. What can we do to protect Earth’s resources?

Suggested Phenomena

Performance Expectation(PE)

Disciplinary Core Idea (DCI)

Suggested Activity

Science & Engr.

Practices (SEP)

Crosscutting Concepts

(CCC)

Four Spheres1 What makes each sphere unique but part of a larger system?

5-ESS2-1 ESS2.A Take students outside to observe. Have them list everything that they see. In the classroom, have them group items on their lists however they choose. Show pictures of four spheres and have students regroup their items and cut out magazine pictures to create collages of the four spheres.

Developing and Using Models

Systems and System Models

Rain Shadow What causes the rain shadow?

5-ESS2-1 ESS2.A Have students complete rain shadow activity to show interactions between spheres. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1EcRksEmKY Have students choose another phenomenon to research. They should make a model of this phenomenon to show interactions between the spheres.

Developing and Using Models

Systems and System Models

Water Cycle Where can water be

5-ESS2-2 ESS2.C Have students complete the Project Wet water cycle game to understand the water cycle. http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/education_safety/education/project_wet/sample_activity.pdf There is also a video version here:

Using Mathematics and

Scale, Proportion, and Quantity

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found on Earth?

http://www.discoverwater.org/blue-traveler/

Have students compare their journey to a traditional water cycle model and note the differences.

Computational Thinking

Water Cycle Where can water be found on Earth?

5-ESS2-2 ESS2.C Then give students model of California and have them fill in where fresh and salt water is located on the map. Students graph fresh and salt water on a world map and compare to their California map the differences of fresh and salt water. http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Water_in_California#/See_also

http://static.nsta.org/files/sc1509_16.pdf

Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking

Scale, Proportion, and Quantity

Water Cycle Where can water be found on Earth?

3-5-ETS1-1 ETS1.A Create a map of storm water flow on campus. Include data on the volume of water that is fallen. Create a presentation using the map and data to deliver to Student Body. Then design a water filtration system for the water flow to be more useful throughout the school.

Asking Questions and Defining Problems

Pacific Trash Vortex How does the trash get there?

5-ESS3-1 3-5-ETS1-2

ESS3.C ETS1.B

Use the 5E lesson plan2 on human impacts to show how humans can have positive and negative effects on the Earth. Students will design ways in which trash can be reduced, reused, and recycled.

Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information Constructing Explanations

Systems and System Models

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How can it be stopped and/or removed?

and Designing Solutions

1. Four Spheres

2. Suggested 5-E Lesson Plan created by 5th Grade CLT/TL (Kelly/SWP)- Human Impact on the environment

Conceptual Flow

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TLC Team Planning

Lesson Sequence Concept:

Performance Expectation: Earth and Human Activity: 5-ESS3-1: Obtain and combine information about ways individual

communities use science ideas to protect the Earth's resources and environment

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DCI: ESS3: C: Human Impacts on Earth's Systems: Human activities in agriculture, industry, and everyday life have had major

effects on the land, vegetation, streams, ocean, air, and even outer space. But individuals and communities are doing things to help

protect Earth's resources and environments.

Practices: Obtain and combine information from books and/or other reliable media to explain phenomena or solutions to a design

problem.

Cross Cutting Concept: Cause and effect- events that occur together with regularity might or might not be a cause and effect

relationship.

Phenomena: Pacific Trash Vortex (Northern Pacific Gyre)

Teacher Does Student Does Concepts

Engage: Show picture of garbage and the

water ways. 1. What do you see?

2. Where do you think this is?

3. How did it get here?

______ 4. Based on the interactions of the

four spheres, draw/label a model

that would explain how the bag

traveled from Tracy to the

ocean?

1. Write in journal/partner share

answers

2. Create a model showing the

travel of a plastic bag from

Tracy to the ocean.

3. With a different color.

Share/add/change/remove one

thing to their model after

sharing.

DCI: systems interact in multiple ways to

affect Earth's surface materials and

processes. The ocean supports a variety of

ecosystems and organisms. SEP: Develop a model using an example to

describe a scientific principle. CCC: A system can be described in terms

of its components and their interactions.

Explore #1 Connect Slat's idea to ways we can prevent

the Pacific garbage patch Vortex from

increasing. What are positive human impacts? -------- How is what Slat doing impacting the

environment? -------

1. Watch video showing visuals of

the Ocean Cleanup Project and

think about question about Slat

impacting environment.

2. Discuss what they noticed about

the video. --------

DCI: Individuals and communities are doing

things to help and support Earth's Resources SEP: Obtain and combine information from

books and/or other reliable media to explain

phenomena or solutions to a design problem CCC: Patterns of change can be used to make

predictions

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Looking around your classroom, what

items could you replace by reusing these

recyclables in new ways?

3. Read the article on Slat's clean up

efforts and highlight positive

human impacts.

4. Look at image of the top 10 pieces

of trash. -------

5. Complete the reuse chart with

group.

Explain #1 Connect to Boyen Slat REDUCING and

making a positive human impact by

cleaning our oceans. Choose 1 item that your group can share

out. How could your solution/ideas have a long

term effect for the environment? Next time you see trash, think about how

you can make a positive impact for our

environment

Choose 1 item on the chart and design a

solutions of how that item could be reused to

better impact the environment. Explain the

reusable item and its use that was created. Think of how your idea has a long term effect

on your environment. (write on the back). Share out

Create a solution to prevent the effects of

human activity from contributing to the

growing garbage vortex in the Pacific Ocean

Elaborate

Evaluate

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Prior Lesson: Talk about the life of an item from start to finish (creates a big idea of the human impact)

Plastic shampoo bottle from the manufacture, delivery, to shelf, ...then now in the ocean

Twenty-Year-Old Boyan Slat Takes On The Monumental Task Of Cleaning Our Oceans

By Sarah Benton Feitlinger on September 26,

2015Photo Credit: Boyanslat.com

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Most 20-year-olds are still trying to figure out what they want to do in life. Not Boyan Slat. Ever since he was 16-years old,

the Dutch teenager has had one mission - To clean up the trillions of pieces of plastic that are polluting our oceans and

killing precious marine life. What's amazing is that this young man who started with what sounded like an outlandish

dream may actually be able to pull off this gargantuan task!

Slat's first exposure to ocean garbage came during a diving vacation in Greece. The teenager was stunned to see that

there was more plastic on the beaches than fishes in the sea. Upon completing high school, he started to pursue his

lifelong dream of becoming an Aerospace Engineer. However, he could never erase the images of the plastic debris from

his mind.

So in 2013, Slat dropped out of college and established The Ocean Cleanup Foundation. Its mission was to create an

environmentally friendly large-scale and efficient way to remove the plastic pollution from aquatic ecosystems while

increasing awareness by simultaneously communicating this process intensively.

Within a year, the determined youngster and his team of 100 volunteer scientists and engineers from all around the world

managed to come up with a 530-page feasibility study that laid out the technology and the financial needs for such a

concept to be viable.

Called the "Ocean Cleanup Project," it did not entail chasing after every piece of floating plastic. Instead, the plan focused

on the five "garbage" patches that have been accumulated by rotating ocean currents or gyres in specific areas.

According to experts, the five harbor about 5.25 trillion of the 8 trillion pieces of plastic estimated to be floating around the

world's oceans today.

Slat's team hypothesized that if we create a stationary collection area around each one, the plastic could be picked up in

an economical and efficient manner. The plan was convincing enough to raise the team close to $2.2 million USD in a

crowdfunding campaign.

Photo Credit: OEX

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But before any clean-up could begin, the environmentalists needed to get an

idea of what they were up against. So on July 23rd, a fleet of 30 small boats and a 171-ft long mother ship called Ocean

Starr, set out towards the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The 500-mile long area of toxic plastic waste that extends from

California to the Sea of Japan is the largest of the five ocean garbage accumulation zones.

The "Mega Expedition," that covered 3,500,000 km, or 2,174,799 miles of ocean measured the trash in various ways.

Manta trawls (net systems for sampling the surface of the water) were attached to each boat, allowing the

environmentalists to collect samples as they drifted along.

A sighting app and a high altitude balloon fixed to Ocean Starr gave the

researchers an idea of the number of bigger pieces of trash, like abandoned buoys and fishing nets that are floating

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around. During the month-long expedition that ended in San Francisco on August 23rd the team collected more data

than experts have been able to in 40 years.Photo Credit: theoceancleanup.com

The Ocean Cleanup Project plans to test its technology with a small task off the shores of Japan in 2016. If all goes well,

they will embark on the arduous chore of cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The team estimates it will take

ten years to extract just 42% of the plastic that is currently floating around the area.

So how will Slat's team retrieve the garbage? By using a system of strategically placed floating barriers that will collect

the plastic brought in by the ocean currents, similar to how the waves carry trash to shore. The collected debris will be

moved to a storage area with the help of a solar-powered conveyor belt. Every 45 days or so, a ship will be dispatched

to retrieve the collected garbage and bring it ashore. Since the system does not require nets, there is no chance of

harming wildlife in the process. As for the accumulated plastic? It will be recycled into oil, which can be sold to help offset

some of the costs associated with the project.

Image Credit: Oceanconservancy.org

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To ensure that our oceans remain clean, the Foundation

plans to create programs to educate and raise recycling awareness. The team is also trying to develop technology to

intercept the plastic and other garbage in rivers and smaller waterways before it enters the ocean.

Even if the young social entrepreneur is partially successful, it will be a huge step in the right direction. According to

experts, plastic debris does more than kill about a million seabirds and over one hundred thousand marine animals each

year. It also costs the fishing and tourism industries about $13 billion dollars in clean-up costs each year. And even worse,

the accumulation of toxic chemicals released by plastic in the sea has started to enter our food chain through fish and is

now being linked to the rise in diseases like cancer. Image Credit: NOAA.gov

While the statistics are dire, the good news is that we can all help eliminate the problem. All we have to do is take

responsibility and practice the three RRR's - Reuse, Recycle, and most importantly, Reduce

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Suggested 5E Lesson Sequence –

Lesson Sequence Concept:

Performance Expectation:

Practices:

DCI :

Cross Cutting Concept:

Phenomena:

Teacher Does Student Does Concepts

Engage: ESR:

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Explore:

ESR:

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Explain:

ESR:

Explore:

Explain:

Reading

(see below)

Have students read.

Use close reading strategy.

Extend/Elaborate:

ESR:

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Evaluate:

Revisit Essential Questions

Ask students to answer the

essential question again

drawing a line of learning

using what they learned

today.

ESR:

Students answer questions

based on what they've

learned or complete a

project.