Our yearlong thematic study of change over time is a science and history based theme. One facet is our science unit, Reading the Environment. It gives students a step-by-step understanding of how weathering and erosion contribute to the rock cycle. It also provides an introduction to thinking about longer periods of time and the distant past.

 

Did you know that all rocks are part of a cycle that might extend over eons of time? An igneous (fire-formed) rock, such as obsidian (black glass), basalt or pumice, can start out from magma welling up from underground. Once it hardens, it is subject to the forces of wind, sun and precipitation. Glaciers, during the Ice Age of around 12,000 years ago, may have peeled off fragments from larger rocks and carried those pieces many miles from where they first formed. Weathering and erosion may have worn down particles and carried them into streams and rivers to be deposited somewhere else. Wet areas can dry up, revealing sedimentary (layered, water-formed) rocks. Earthquakes and other plate movements can cause uplift of former ocean bottoms, bringing sedimentary rocks containing fossils of sea creatures to the tops of mountains. Those same plate movements can cause melting of the earth’s crust, squeezing and heating igneous or sedimentary rock until it changes into metamorphic rock. That’s how limestone turns to marble. Igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic are the three categories of rock formation. Over very long periods of time, rocks can change into other kinds of rock.

 

Change over time occurs in living and in nonliving things. We’ve looked at students’ baby pictures to see similarities and changes over their lifespan. We’ve talked about what happens to the leaves from trees, connecting the knowledge students acquired in grades 1 and 2 with the understanding the 3rds have from studying producers, consumers and decomposers last year (this year’s 3rds will study that in depth next year.) Your child’s homework assignments to interview family members about changes they create in their jobs and changes they’ve observed since their childhoods are part of building a framework for understanding change over time.

 

Students recently worked with our outdoor education instructors to model the movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates using graham crackers and icing. This (edible!) activity helps kids visualize mountain building as well as the theory that all the continents once were fused into one giant land mass. Scientists theorize that the pegmatite formations we visit at Case Quarry, formations rich in minerals, resulted from magma welling up during the separation from that continental crunch.

 

Reading maps is connected to our study of change over time. Students have colored and labeled Form-A-Globes to turn a flat 2-D map into a three-dimensional one. In the process, they have learned the names of the 7 continents. They have noticed how the shapes of these giant land masses change depending on how they are shown on a map, and which maps are the more accurate ones. Students have also found their houses on a topo map. The map is from 1984, so we’ve discovered lots of changes, since some newer roads are missing!

 

Our read-aloud books are also introducing us to change over time. First we heard a book called “Pilgrim Voices”. It uses the written accounts of William Bradford and the English of the 1600’s to recount the first year of the settlement at Plymouth. We have noticed differences in how the language has changed. Now we are listening for changes in the lives and lifestyle of the settlers as we hear “Stranded at Plymouth Plantation, 1620” which takes place 6 years later.

 

The theme of change over time appears in the books we are using for various book group discussions (Stone Fox, Number the Stars, The Cay, Caddie Woodlawn.) We look at how characters change over the course of the novel. If the story takes place in another time period, we look at how life for those children compares to students’ lives today. We notice what has changed and why.

 

As you can see, a lot of thought has gone into our curriculum planning to make the most of connections between subject areas. These connections make it easier for students to construct a clear, lasting and usable understanding of the concepts being taught. Our goal is to have students engage in higher order thinking, which means they can theorize what might cause something else and how we can deduce causes from evidence. Students need to be good at seeing connections across subject areas in order to begin noticing connections for themselves, so they can grow up to generate solutions to problems in our world that haven’t been solved yet. They need to be able to notice when a seemingly unrelated action (for example, paying farmers to grow corn for ethanol) actually has an unintended bad effect (raising local food prices! causing the Amazon rainforest to disappear even faster!) Our students can understand why both presidential candidates backed off that energy plan.

 

Most recently, students have applied their growing skill at close observation drawing to our study of rocks. Each child picked a rock from our kit to observe, draw and research. They have tried to determine the process through which it was formed and whether people have found uses for that particular kind of rock. Each child published a paragraph of writing to go with a drawing of the rock. Check out our displays of drawings and research the next time you come in. Also check out our iMovie of an assembly rehearsal of the songs students wrote about how different rocks are formed. Our past work with HOT Schools resident artist Mike Kachuba (through the Connecticut Commission on the Arts) helped give us the skills and background to write and perform these songs. The act of writing songs about rocks requires that students really know the material they have been studying. It strengthens learning and offers a creative way to share knowledge with others.  

 

Our next science unit is called States of Matter. We will study the changes in water from solid to liquid to gas and from gas to liquid to solid. We will also view the inauguration as the country changes leaders.