In accordance with the Comprehensive Curriculum set forth by the Department of Education for the State of Louisiana Unit 2 introduces the layers that form Earth with a focus on the theory of plate tectonics. The unit includes the identification of minerals and rocks and the study of the rock cycle.

Enduring Understandings:

1. Individual parts and processes function interdependently to create systems.

2. Within and among systems, where parts relate to other parts, input for one system may be output from another.

3. The natural world is characterized by patterns of change.

4. Models provide insight about how things work.

5. Experiments can yield different results; the scientific challenge is to judge if the difference is trivial or significant.

Essential Questions:

1. When do individual parts and processes become a system? When is a system no longer a system?

2. How can systems interact?

3. How can changes produce patterns?

4. What makes a model a perfect or "true" model? Does the perfect model exist?

5. Why are some tests results considered significant and others are not?

GLE's:SI-1,2,3,4,6,7,8,10,11,12,13,14,15,19,22,23,33,34,37;ESS-8,9,10,11,12,13,16,17,18.