Concept 2: Earth’s Processes and Systems Understand the processes acting on the Earth and their interaction with the Earth systems.
PO 1. Describe how the Moon’s appearance changes during a four-week lunar cycle. PO 2. Describe how Earth’s rotation results in day and night at any particular location. PO 3. Distinguish between revolution and rotation. PO 4. Describe the role of gravity as an attractive force between celestial objects.
Concept 3: Earth in the Solar System Understand the relationships of the Earth and other objects in the solar system.
PO 1. Identify the known planets of the solar system. PO 2. Describe the distinguishing characteristics of the known planets in the solar system. PO 3. Describe various objects in the sky (e.g., asteroids, comets, stars, meteors/shooting stars). PO 4. Describe the change in position and motion of the following objects in the sky over time: • real motion – Moon, planets • apparent motion (due to the motion of the Earth) – Sun, Moon, stars PO 5. Explain the apparent motion of the Sun and stars. PO 6. Describe efforts to explore space (e.g., Apollo missions, space shuttles, Hubble space telescope, space probes). (See Strand 2)