Subscribe

7th grade · Science · Unit 8 of 10

Earth's Moving Surface

Plates, the rock cycle and the Cascades.

What your child practices

Practices plate tectonics and evidence from fossils, rocks and continent shapes, the rock cycle, and how processes at different speeds shape Earth's surface, including the Cascade volcanoes.

Maine Learning Results learning standard: MS-ESS2-1; MS-ESS2-2; MS-ESS2-3 · the rock cycle, surface processes at different scales, and evidence for plate motion

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Matching coastlines, fossils and rocks on far-apart continents show they were once joined.
  2. Plates pull apart at mid-ocean ridges and collide to build mountains and volcanoes, such as the Cascades.
  3. Some changes are sudden (earthquakes); others take millions of years (mountain building).

Example: Is a landslide a fast or a very slow change to Earth’s surface? A landslide happens in minutes. Mountain building takes millions of years. Answer: fast

Earth's Moving Surface in Maine

In the Maine Learning Results, this is unit 8 of 10 in 7th grade Science, after Chemical Reactions and before Mixtures & Solutions.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Maine Department of Education

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    The Cascade volcanoes formed because…

    • plates pull apart in the middle of a continent
    • glaciers built them
    • one plate sinks under another
    • a meteor hit

  2. Question 2

    Granite is an example of…

    • sedimentary rock
    • a mineral only
    • igneous rock
    • a fossil

  3. Question 3

    Rock formed from cooled magma or lava is…

    • igneous
    • sedimentary
    • fossil
    • metamorphic

  4. Question 4

    Earth's outer layer is broken into large pieces called…

    • cores
    • crusts of ice
    • tectonic plates
    • mantle cells

  5. Question 5

    Which process is very slow?

    • A flash flood
    • Mountains rising from plate collisions
    • A volcanic eruption
    • A landslide

  6. Question 6

    Fossils of sea animals high in mountains show that…

    • it rained fish
    • rock layers were lifted by plate motion
    • sea animals climbed
    • mountains formed in the sea yesterday

More 7th grade