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  • 5th Grade

    Earth and Human Activity

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations

  1. Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment. 5-ESS3-1

    Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

A Peformance Expectation (PE) is what a student should be able to do to show mastery of a concept. Some PEs include a Clarification Statement and/or an Assessment Boundary. These can be found by clicking the PE for "More Info." By hovering over a PE, its corresponding pieces from the Science and Engineering Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts will be highlighted.

Science and Engineering Practices

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Crosscutting Concepts

By clicking on a specific Science and Engineering Practice, Disciplinary Core Idea, or Crosscutting Concept, you can find out more information on it. By hovering over one you can find its corresponding elements in the PEs.

Planning Curriculum

Common Core State Standards Connections

ELA/Literacy

  • RI.5.1 - Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text. (5-ESS3-1)
  • RI.5.7 - Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources, demonstrating the ability to locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a problem efficiently. (5-ESS3-1)
  • RI.5.9 - Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably. (5-ESS3-1)
  • W.5.8 - Recall relevant information from experiences or gather relevant information from print and digital sources; summarize or paraphrase information in notes and finished work, and provide a list of sources. (5-ESS3-1)
  • W.5.9 - Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research. (5-ESS3-1)

Mathematics

  • MP.2 - Reason abstractly and quantitatively. (5-ESS3-1)
  • MP.4 - Model with mathematics. (5-ESS3-1)

Model Course Mapping

First Time Visitors

Resources & Lesson Plans

  • More resources added each week!
    A team of teacher curators is working to find, review, and vet online resources that support the standards. Check back often, as NSTA continues to add more targeted resources.
  • Oil Spills - Improving Oil Booms

    In this activity, students learn about oil spills and the effects they have on Earth’s environment. The driving question students will be making sense of is: What can engineers design to prevent oil spills from polluting beaches and harming wil ...

  • SciGirls Aquabots

    This 28 minute movie from PBS depicts middle school aged students working in unison with the U.S. Naval Academy investigating oyster reefs in the Chesapeake Bay.  Oysters are known to help filter water, but due to a declining population of oyste ...

  • Think It, Design It, Build It....Water Filtration Activity

    This unit activity combines learning about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth's resources and environment along with the engineering design process to create a water filtration system.  Constraints a ...

  • Simulating an Oil Spill to Understand Environmental Impact

    This 8 minute instructional video provides a model for teachers to follow of a week long investigation of oil spills and the environmental impact they have on shorelines and creatures. Students take on the task of cleaning up a simulated oil spill. E ...

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Planning Curriculum gives connections to other areas of study for easier curriculum creation.