Science Performance
8th
Grade:
Grade
Topic – Geological Columns of Fossils, Faulting, Folding,
and Layers
Title
Columns of Rock
Performance Expectation: Framework: Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence from rock strata for
how the geologic time scale is used to organize Earth’s 4.6 –billion-year-old history. (UT Sci Core Curr Standard 3
Objective 3)
Performance Expectations:
Using a variety of tasks to develop evidence, students will construct a writing prompt about how changes in the rock
strata affects geologic time scale.
Student Science Performance
Gathering
1. Using rock layer pictures and data, student use evidence to correctly layer them by age as a group and then as a
class.
2. Working in groups of 4, students are given data cards and will accurately construct a column of the Grand Canyon.
Reasoning
1. Using Photobooth, students will identify and describe the phenomenon that occurs when rocks have been
faulted, folded, have extrusions and intrusions.
2. Students, in pairs, provide a written explanation (on Padlet) for the causes of folding and faulting that occur in
nature.
Sample Questions:
What forces or mechanisms below the earth’s surface might have caused the changes in the rock?
What forces or mechanisms above the earth’s surface might have caused the changes in the rock?
How were the rock layers folded?
How were the rock layers faulted?
How fast or slow does his process occur?
Where on earth besides the Grand Canyon does this phenomenon occur?
Why is our evidence based on the work of scientists?
What more would you like to know about these rock layers?
Where does the energy come from to change rock?
Communicating
Students will construct a written argument from this writing prompt:
You are a famous geologist. A colleague from India sends you a photograph of rock layers that contain fossils. He
claims that because he found a human fossil in a lower layer than a dinosaur fossils, that humans were alive before
dinosaurs. Write him a letter giving other possible explanations as to why the human fossil was found below the
dinosaur fossil.
Possible words to include: folding, faulting, erosion, intrusion, extrusion, uplift
Science Practices
Developing and using
models
Construction Explanations
Engage in Argument from
evidence
Crosscutting Concepts
Patterns
Scale, proportion, and
quantity
Cause and Effect
Disciplinary Core Ideas
Universe and Earth
Force or Energy?
(B. Moulding, 2011)
Relate models to simple phenomena
Use representations to reflect on mechanisms of how things work
Compare multiple explanations of the same science phenomena
Use evidence to support arguments about science explanations and phenomena
Use patterns as evidence to support science explanations
Develop models of events in terms of time
Use geologic time lines and scales to compare events in the past
Use evidence to support explanations for the causes of phenomena
The earth reshapes through weathering, eroding, volcanoes, and uplift