Our science unit for the first trimester is Earth science and focuses on the question: how does the Earth change?
To obtain some background knowledge on this topic, we watched a few short movies about the internal structure and layers of the Earth. We discussed what is known about the layers of Earth and how far down people have actually drilled and seen with our eyes (not that far!).
Afterwards, we pooled the fifth graders’ knowledge of the ways in which the Earth changes. We also took time to ponder what we (as a class) don’t know about the Earth and how it changes yet and formulated some questions on the topic. Some samples include:
- Does the sun affect the Earth’s core?
- Is more rock inside the Earth becoming lava? Do the layers change?
- What would happen if the ocean’s water got under a tectonic plate?
- Did Earth’s layers ever look different?
The students asked some wonderful questions, and will have opportunities to investigate many of these further as we move through our unit.
