What you need to know...

• Students know that the geologic time scale interpreted from fossils and the sequence of rock strata provides a way to reconstruct how and when major events in Earth’s history occurred in terms of relative time.  (NAEP 2028)

• Students analyze and interpret stratigraphic diagrams to infer a sequence of events or to identify index fossils.

• Students use the laws of superposition and cross cutting relationships to organize rock layers or features (such as igneous intrusions or faults) from oldest to youngest (or younger to oldest).

• Students recognize that Earth processes such as floods, earthquakes, and plate tectonics can result in missing layers or deformed layers.

• Students explain conditions needed for fossils to be preserved and why all organisms do not leave behind evidence of their existence.

• Students define characteristics of index fossils.

• Students use index fossils to determine the relative ages of rock layers.

What you need to know...

• Students engage in argument from evidence to explain the formation of fossils and fossil fuels, and use evidence from the fossil record to explain how the environment has changed over long periods of time.  (TIMSS 2023)(NAEP 2028)

• Students explain the concept of uniformitarianism and its importance to understanding Earth’s history.

• Students model the rock cycle and how igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks are formed. (NAEP 2028)

• Students identify the conditions that create different types of sedimentary rocks.(NAEP 2028)

• Students examine fossil, climate, and geologic evidence and explain how it supports the theory of plate tectonics and the existence of Pangea and current landforms. (NAEP 2028)

• Students support arguments of how Earth has changed (globally or in specific sites) using their understanding of uniformitarianism and evidence based on the rock cycle, geological features, and fossil evidence. 

What you need to know...

• Students know that influences on the climate at a given place include latitude, altitude, local and regional geography, and oceanic and atmospheric flow patterns.  (NAEP 2028)

• Students recall the Coriolis Effect.

• Students know that the ocean is divided into zones based on the amount of light that reaches the area.

• Students use models to explain how the Global Ocean Conveyor Belt is driven by temperature and salinity and moves nutrients, minerals, and dissolved gases around the planet, impacting climate, ecosystems, and life on earth.

• Students use models to explain how thermohaline circulation in polar regions helps to drive the Global Ocean Conveyor Belt. 

• Students describe how ocean currents create climates that are milder near the coasts and less mild in the interior of continents.

• Students understand how winds have a strong effect on oceans, including creating currents, and impacting the dissolved gases in them.

• Students explain how upwelling impacts the biodiversity of the ocean.

• Students explain how hydrothermal vents impact living organisms along seafloor.

• Students explain how the dissolved gases and the nutrients in oceans affect life forms both in the ocean and on land. 

• Students explain how the relationship between salinity, temperature, and pressure affect dissolved gases found in the ocean.

What you need to know...

• Students explain how human behavior (e.g., reducing water pollution, protecting endangered species) can have positive effects on the environment.  (TIMSS 2023)

• Students explain how human behavior (e.g., allowing factory waste water to enter water systems) can have negative effects on the environment. (TIMSS 2023)

• Students explain the effects of water pollution on humans, plants, and animals (e.g., water pollution can reduce plant and animal life in the water system).  (TIMSS 2023)

• Students analyze data about a body of water (temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, nitrate and phosphate levels, turbidity, and bioindicators present) to assess how safe and/or potable the water is.

• Students explain how different physical and biological properties of water (temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, nitrate and phosphate levels, turbidity, and bioindicators present) affect the types and amount of living organisms that can live in a body of water.

• Students identify the major sources of water pollution in North Carolina and how they affect physical and biological factors in a body of water.

What you need to know...

• Students explain the importance of water conservation and describe methods for ensuring that freshwater is available for human activities.  (TIMSS 2023)

• Students explain the importance of monitoring water quality to improve human health supported by evidence from regulation at the local, state, and federal level and their impacts.

• Students understand the connection between land-use regulations on activities like agriculture and development, and their effects on water quality and human health.

• Students explain how the steps of the water treatment process helps to ensure water is safe and potable (coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, disinfection, storage).

• Students understand major point and nonpoint pollutants that affect water quality in North Carolina 

• Students explain ways in which regulations at the local, state, and federal level, as well as good stewardship help mitigate point and nonpoint pollution sources  (e.g. Clean Water Act of 1972, Safe Water Drinking Act of 1974, and work of the EPA).

What you need to know...

• Students know that natural resources are distributed unevenly by biogeochemical processes (e.g., water cycle, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle) around the planet as a result of Earth system processes (atmosphere, geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere). 

• Students know humans depend on the Earth’s geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere for resources, both renewable and nonrenewable, within human life spans.  (NAEP 2028)

• Students explain how energy resources are classified as renewable or nonrenewable based on the following variables:

  • amount of the resource available 

  • the rate the resource is being used 

  • the rate the resource can be replenished

• Students define renewable resources as energy resources that can be used without depleting the resource or that can be replenished at a rate equal to or greater than the rate the resource is being used.  

  • These resources include solar, wind, water (dams and tidal power), geothermal, and biomass. 

• Students define nonrenewable resources as energy resources that exist in finite amounts that are being used faster than natural processes can replenish the resources reservoir. 

  • These resources include nuclear, coal, natural gas, and oil. 

  • Coal, natural gas, and oil are often referred to together as fossil fuels.

What you need to know...

• Students explain using evidence advantages and disadvantages of different energy sources (e.g., sunlight, wind, flowing water, geothermal, oil, coal, gas, nuclear).  (TIMSS 2023)

• Students describe methods of conservation of Earth’s resources and methods of waste management (e.g., reduce, reuse, recycle).  (TIMSS 2023)  

• Students explain how common methods of land use (e.g., farming, logging, mining) can affect land and water resources.  (TIMSS 2023)

• Students explain:

  • how each energy resource (nuclear, coal, natural gas, wind, solar, hydroelectric, oil) is obtained (e.g., drilling, creating solar panels and batteries).

  • how it is transferred from its original state to a form usable by humans.

  • how the energy is distributed for use from its original location or source. 

• Students explain the environmental consequences of obtaining, transforming, and transmitting energy.  (e.g., ecological impacts of dams, mining impacts for coal and the elements needed to make batteries, and pollution caused by fossil fuels). 

• Given a scenario, students explain, using evidence, the best energy resource for the specific situation.

What you need to know...

• Students know that humans depend on the Earth’s geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere for resources, both renewable and nonrenewable, within human life spans. 

• Students explain how the extraction and use of renewable and nonrenewable resources has impacted global temperatures. 

• Students know that human activities have significantly altered global temperatures in the biosphere, atmosphere, and geosphere, sometimes damaging or destroying ecosystems and causing the extinction of organisms. 

• Students explain how human choices can minimize harm to other organisms and risks to the health of the regional environment.  (NAEP 2028)

• Students use data to explain how human activities since Industrialization have released greenhouse gases, such as production and combustion of fossil fuels, have contributed to sea level rise and extreme weather events, and have contributed to the current rise in Earth’s temperature. 

• Students use data to explain how monitoring the production and reducing the use of fossil fuels can slow the increase in global temperatures as well as the effects of climate change.  (NAEP 2028)

What you need to know...

• Students explain using evidence advantages and disadvantages of different energy sources (e.g., sunlight, wind, flowing water, geothermal, oil, coal, gas, nuclear).  (TIMSS 2023)

• Students use evidence to explain how stewardship and conservation of Earth’s renewable and nonrenewable resources are important to the good health of the environment.