Earths Processes and Systems: Backward Design Unit Plan Stage 1: Established Goals: 7th Grade Science, Concept

2: Earths Processes and Systems, PO 3. Analyze the evidence that lithospheric plate movements occur. PO 4. Explain lithospheric plate movement as a result of convection. PO 5. Relate plate boundary movements to their resulting landforms, including: mountains faults rift valleys trenches volcanoes PO 6. Describe how earthquakes are measured. Understandings: I want my students to understand that the Earths crust is made up of plates that move because of the currents in the mantle. I want them to understand that the plates have always been moving, they all used to connect to form a large continent, now they make the Earth look the way it looks. Finally, I want my students to understand that this plate movement is the reason for mountains, volcanoes, rifts, and earthquakes. Essential Questions: How is the Earth like bread? How are the Earths oceans growing wider?

How is Everest growing taller? What will the Earth look like in 50 million years? Students will know: Why plates move on the Earths surface. Which way the plates are moving. Why mountains/volcanoes are formed. Why there are earthquakes so often in places like California and Japan. Why the oceans are growing each year. Students will be able to: Move the plates from their formation during pandgea to their current formation. Make a model of at least three different interactions that plates can have with each other, including the resulting formations due to the plates. Stage 2: Performance Tasks: Plate Models: Students will use materials at their disposal to create a 3D, labeled model of at least three different interactions between plates and a formation that is caused by each interaction. Pangea to Present: Students will cut out and color the 7 continents (and India), create the supercontinent Pangea, and move the continents through the transformations that led to the current arrangement of the continents. The students will draw each new transformation of the continents. The Present and the Future: Students will use the materials from Pangea to Present to predict were the plates might move to in 50 million years. Other Evidence: Daily bellwork that will give me formative data about the students understandings.

Classwork done in notebooks, which will give me formative data about the studentss understandings. Some of this classwork and bellwork will be self assessment driven. Stage 3: Learning Plan: 1. Open with an anticipatory set. H 2. Introduce the keywords of Pangea, Lithospheric Plate, Mountain, Rift Valley, Fault, Trench, Volcano, Core, and Mantle (also on Word Wall). W, E 3. Have the students journal about what they know already. W, H 4. Present lesson on the makeup of the Earth: core, mantle, and plates. Students will diagram the makeup of the Earth in their notes. Then they will be given clay and will work in groups to make a 3D model. E, T 5. Have a discussion about what each student thought the Earth was made of, and if/how their thoughts have changed. H, R, E-2 6. Present lesson on plate tectonics, introducing lithospheric plates and how they lead to mountains, trenches, and so on. Students will diagram how each land formation is formed (Earthquakes included) in their notes. E, T, 7. Students will perform Plate Models activity. E, T, 8. Present lesson on the lithospheric plates past. I will show a video of the movement of the plates from Pangea to present day. Students will fill out their notetaker and staple into notebooks. E, T, 9. Students will perform Pangea to Present activity. E, T, 10. Students will perform the Present and the Future activity. H, E, T, E-2,

11. Students will journal about what they have learned and how their thinking has changed. E, R, E-2, T, O 12. Note: Students will be allowed to fix any and all assignments for up to a week after the day it is due, for all of the points. R, E-2, T, O