Unit 4 · Earth's Restless Surface

Driving question: Why is the ground not as solid as it looks? Across five lessons students build one connected model — that energy from Earth's hot interior drives plates to move, collide, and build mountains, while matter is rearranged and conserved through the rock cycle — and then apply that model to assess natural-hazard risk.

NGSS MS-ESS2 · MS-ESS3 Late winter ~5 weeks Ends in a hazard-assessment performance task

The lessons

Week 1

How did seashells end up on a mountaintop?

Earth's layers, deep time, and the energy that lifts a seafloor into a mountain.

MS-ESS2-3 (intro) · MS-ESS1-4 (intro) Week 2

Why do the continents fit like puzzle pieces?

Plate tectonics, matching fossil evidence, seafloor spreading, and mantle convection as the engine.

MS-ESS2-3 Week 3

Why does the ground shake and mountains rise?

Plate boundaries, earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain building, and stored elastic energy released suddenly.

MS-ESS2-3 · MS-ESS3-2 Week 4

How does solid rock become sand and become rock again?

Weathering, erosion, deposition, and the rock cycle — matter rearranged and conserved.

MS-ESS2-1 · MS-ESS2-2 Week 5 · Performance task

Where is it safe to build, and why?

Synthesis + the summative hazard-assessment task, scored with a 3-dimensional rubric.

MS-ESS3-2 (integrating ESS2-1/2/3)