MS-ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
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Disciplinary Core Ideas
ESS3.C: Human Impacts on Earth Systems
• Human activities have significantly altered the biosphere, sometimes damaging or destroying natural habitats and causing the extinction of other species. But changes to Earth’s environments can have different impacts (negative and positive) for different living things. (MS-ESS3-3)
• Typically as human populations and per-capita consumption of natural resources increase, so do the negative impacts on Earth unless the activities and technologies involved are engineered otherwise. (MS-ESS3-3),(MS-ESS3-4)
ESS3.D: Global Climate Change
• Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming). Reducing the level of climate change and reducing human vulnerability to whatever climate changes do occur depend on the understanding of climate science, engineering capabilities, and other kinds of knowledge, such as understanding of human behavior and on applying that knowledge wisely in decisions and activities. (MS-ESS3-5)
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Use the Template and Resource Links to Fulfill NGSS
l. Goals:
- Understand how human activities have affected the biosphere with water, land and air usage and polluting.
- Understand that growing human populations increased our effect on the biosphere.
- Understand that humans can and should develop ways to protect Earth’s resources (on which we depend for life).
- Understand that human actions have affected created climate change and understanding and this will help lead to useful solutions.
Essential Questions:
- How have human actions affected the biosphere?
- How does growing human population affect the Earth’s resources?
- In what ways have humans begun to try to protect Earth’s resources?
- In what ways have humans begun to address our effect on climate change?
NGSS Note: Think, question, entertain ideas.
ll. Introductory Activities to Assess Prior Knowledge
A. Simple Activities – that assess your students’ understanding of the effect of humans on Earth’s resources and Climate Change.
Changing Ecosystems – Matching (Discuss)
C. Brainstorming Session
Question: How are we affecting Earth’s resources (water, land, air)?
1. Break students down into groups of 3-4.
2. Ask students to generate a list of the different ways humans are affecting Earth’s resources (including climate).
3. Discuss
lll. New Knowledge – Text
Read about Earth’s resources and how humans affect them.
Acid Rain – How Environmental Factors Influence the Growth of Organisms
Greenhouse Effect VS. Global Warming – Reading and Diagram
DDT Disaster – Human Impacts on Earth Systems
Food Security – Human Impacts on Earth Systems – Reading and Research
Rice Cultivation Issues – Human Impacts on Earth Systems – Reading and Research
Disappearing Birds – Human Impacts on Earth Systems – Reading and Performance Task
Examples of Models (depicts the concepts expressed in the reading):
Ask students to look at the two models illustrating global warming and climate change and explain how each illustrates the concept.
lV. Research, Report, Critical Thinking, Construct an Argument, Performance Tasks
Inquiry related to human over-use and destruction of Earth’s resources
Our Role in Climate Change – Research and Report
Reversing Climate Change – Research and Report
Monitoring and Minimizing Acid Rain – Research and Report
Environmental Disasters – Human Impacts on Earth Systems – Research and Report
How Many Resources Do We Each Use? Critical Thinking
Human Population and the Consumption of Resources – Construct an Argument
Design a Low Impact House and Yard
The Dangerous Migration of Birds – Authentic Performance
V. Summarize Knowledge – Enduring Understandings
- Human activities have affected the biosphere with our usage of water, land and air and their rising pollution levels.
- Growing human populations increased our effect on the biosphere.
- Humans can and should develop ways to protect Earth’s resources (on which we depend for life).
- Human actions have affected created climate change and understanding and this will help lead to useful solutions.
Vl. Next Generation of Science Standards (NGSS) – Middle School Earth Science
Disciplinary Core Ideas
ESS3.C: Human Impacts on Earth Systems
• Human activities have significantly altered the biosphere, sometimes damaging or destroying natural habitats and causing the extinction of other species. But changes to Earth’s environments can have different impacts (negative and positive) for different living things. (MS-ESS3-3)
• Typically as human populations and per-capita consumption of natural resources increase, so do the negative impacts on Earth unless the activities and technologies involved are engineered otherwise. (MS-ESS3-3),(MS-ESS3-4)
ESS3.D: Global Climate Change
• Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming). Reducing the level of climate change and reducing human vulnerability to whatever climate changes do occur depend on the understanding of climate science, engineering capabilities, and other kinds of knowledge, such as understanding of human behavior and on applying that knowledge wisely in decisions and activities. (MS-ESS3-5)
Science and Engineering Practices
Asking Questions and Defining Problems
Asking questions and defining problems in grades 6–8 builds on grades K–5 experiences and progresses to specifying relationships between variables, and clarifying arguments and models.
• Ask questions to identify and clarify evidence of an argument. (MS-ESS3-5)
Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions
• Constructing explanations and designing solutions in 6–8 builds on K–5 experiences and progresses to include constructing explanations and designing solutions supported by multiple sources of evidence consistent with scientific ideas, principles, and theories.
• Construct a scientific explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from sources (including the students’ own experiments) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe the natural world operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future. (MS-ESS3-1)
• Apply scientific principles to design an object, tool, process or system. (MS-ESS3-3)
Engaging in Argument from Evidence
Engaging in argument from evidence in 6–8 builds on K–5 experiences and progresses to constructing a convincing argument that supports or refutes claims for either explanations or solutions about the natural and designed world(s).
• Construct an oral and written argument supported by empirical evidence and scientific reasoning to support or refute an explanation or a model for a phenomenon or a solution to a problem. (MS-ESS3-4)
Crosscutting Concepts
Cause and Effect
• Relationships can be classified as causal or correlational, and correlation does not necessarily imply causation. (MS-ESS3-3)
• Cause and effect relationships may be used to predict phenomena in natural or designed systems. (MS-ESS3-1),(MS-ESS3-4)
Stability and Change
• Stability might be disturbed either by sudden events or gradual changes that accumulate over time. (MS-ESS3-5)
Connections to Engineering, Technology and Applications of Science
Influence of Science, Engineering, and Technology on Society and the Natural World
• All human activity draws on natural resources and has both short and long-term consequences, positive as well as negative, for the health of people and the natural environment. (MS-ESS3-1),(MS-ESS3-4)
• The uses of technologies and any limitations on their use are driven by individual or societal needs, desires, and values; by the findings of scientific research; and by differences in such factors as climate, natural resources, and economic conditions. Thus technology use varies from region to region and over time. (MS-ESS3-2),(MS-ESS3-3)
Connections to Nature of Science
Science Addresses Questions About the Natural and Material World
• Scientific knowledge can describe the consequences of actions but does not necessarily prescribe the decisions that society takes. (MS-ESS3-4)
