5th Grade Earth Science Standards
1. Describe how night and day are caused by Earth's rotation.
2. Explain that Earth is one of several planets to orbit the sun, and that the moon orbits Earth.
3. Describe the characteristics of Earth and its orbit about th sun (e.g., three-fourths of Earth's surface is covered by a layer of water [some of it frozen], the entire planet surrounded by a thin blanket of air, elliptical orbit, tilted axis and spherical planet.
4. Explain that stars are like the sun, some being smaller and some larger, but so far away that they look like points of light.
5. Explain how the supply of many non-renewable resources is limited and can be extended through reducing, reusing and recycling but cannot be extended indefinitely.
6. Investigate ways Earth's renewable resources (e.g. fresh water, air, wildlife and trees) can be maintained.
4th Grade Earth Science Standards
1. Explain that air surrounds us, takes up space, moves around us as wind, and may be measured using barometric pressure.
2. Identify how water exists in the air in different forms (e.g., in clouds, fog, rain, snow and hail).
3. Investigate how water changes from one state to another (e.g., freezing, melting, condensation and evaporation).
4. Describe weather by measurable quantities such as temperature, wind direction, wind speed, precipitation and barometric pressure.
5. Record local weather information on a calendar or map and describe changes over a period of time (e.g., barometric pressure, temperature, precipitation symbols and cloud conditions).
6. Trace how weather patterns generally move from west to east in the United States.
7. Describe the weather which accompanies cumulus, cumulonimbus, cirrus, and stratus clouds.
8. Describe how wind, water and ice shape and reshape Earth's land surface by eroding rock and soil in some areas and depositing them in other areas producing characteristic landforms (e.g., dunes, deltas and glacial moraines).
9. Identify and describe how freezing, thawing and plant growth reshape the land surface by causing the weathering of rock.
10. Describe evidence of changes on Earth's surface in terms of slow processes (e.g., erosion, weathering, mountain building and deposition) and rapid processes (e.g., volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and landslides).
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