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6th grade · Science · Unit 4 of 7

Earth's Moving Surface

Plates, the rock cycle and changing land.

What your child practices

Practices how Earth's surface changes slowly and quickly, at small and large scales: plates, mountain building, the rock cycle, weathering and erosion, and glaciers, which shaped Minnesota's lakes.

Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards benchmark: 6E.4.1.1.1; 6E.2.1.1.1 · how Earth's surface changes at different speeds and sizes

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Plates move. When one slides under another, it is subduction.
  2. Igneous rock cools from magma. Sedimentary forms from pressed sediment. Metamorphic forms from heat and pressure.
  3. The sun drives weathering and the water cycle. Glaciers and water reshape land.
  4. The Red River Valley's farmland was once the bottom of a huge glacial lake.

Example: Rock forms from layers of pressed sand and mud. Which type is it? Layers of sediment pressed together form one rock type. Answer: sedimentary

Earth's Moving Surface in Minnesota

In the Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards, this is unit 4 of 7 in 6th grade Science, after Plate Tectonics and before Earth's History & Fossils.

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: Minnesota Department of Education (MDE)

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

    Granite is an example of…

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

  2. Question 2

    Sandstone buried deep and heated may become…

    • limestone
    • lava
    • soil
    • quartzite, a metamorphic rock

  3. Question 3

    The flat, rich farmland of the Red River Valley was once the bottom of…

    • an ocean trench
    • a desert
    • a volcano
    • a huge glacial lake

  4. Question 4

    The wide Minnesota River valley was carved by a giant river of glacial meltwater called…

    • the Colorado River
    • the Amazon
    • the Gulf Stream
    • Glacial River Warren

  5. Question 5

    Rock changed by heat and pressure is…

    • igneous
    • sedimentary
    • metamorphic
    • volcanic glass

  6. Question 6

    Which energy drives weathering and the water cycle part of the rock cycle?

    • The sun
    • Earth's core only
    • Magnetism
    • The moon

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