Earth Science

The sixth grade science curriculum focuses on Earth Science. The students are afforded the opportunity to study the living world that God created for. The study is broken into five units.

Plate Tectonics and Earth's Structure
This unit will cover plate tectonics, earthquakes, rocks & minerals. The students learn how the movements at and below the crust help shape the earth’s surface. A highlight of this unit is the model buildings students construct to determine earthquake resistance.

Shaping Earth's Surface
Topics include weathering, erosion, and soil formation and are studied to examine how these processes continually reshape the earth’s form and redistribute earth’s raw materials. A correlation to social studies is made during this unit to understand the scientific causes for the Dust Bowl era and the corresponding economic, historic, and social results.

Earth's Waters
This unit covers freshwater sources and pollution, ocean currents, tides, and ocean chemistry. Students learn the importance of earth’s water sources, study the chemistry of them, and discuss ways they are polluted.

Weather
Students study weather factors and patterns. This is done through a 3 week webquest in which students chart a city’s weather patterns and examine the accuracy of several meteorological sources.

Ecology
This section covers earth’s resources, and conservation. Students’ studies focus on preserving and maintaining the beautiful world that God created for us.

The curriculum meets California state standards in Earth Science for grade six. Students are assessed through written and performance work. Ideas regarding evolution will be met during the year. The students will be taught that Creation is the way that God formed the world. There will not be a unit dedicated to this topic as it is covered in great detail during the Life Science course. The instruction is balanced between lecture and lab.