Enduring Understandings

• Predictions must be tested and data examined in order to solve questions.
• Using instruments as an extension of our senses is essential when making qualitative an quantitative observations.
• Precision of measurement and type of measuring instrument are dependent upon the degree of information.
• Minerals are chemical interactions that form into six basic crystal shapes.
• All materials of the earth are built from atoms.
• Rocks are aggregates of minerals.
• Silica-rich mafic or ultramafic rock (parent rock) gives rise to all igneous rock, metamorphic rock, and sedimentary rock.
• Igneous rock composition is dependent on eight rock forming minerals.
• Topographic maps show three-dimensional formations of the earth's surface.
• Surface features of the earth are formed and destroyed by the action of wind, water, sand and ice.
• Erosion is the carrying away or displacement of solids on the earth's surface by agents of currents.
• Weathering is the breaking down of rock in place through physical and chemical forces.
• Plate tectonics affect the surface of the Earth via movement of the plates.
• The internal pressures and temperatures that result from tectonic movements give rise to features such as volcanoes, earthquakes and other forms of mountain building.
• Supposition enables geologists to determine the order of earth's changing forces.
• Fossils provide evidence about plants and animals that lived long ago.
• The geologic history of the Earth is written in stone.