Earth and Space Science · California Grade 7
MS-ESS3-1
Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how the uneven distributions of Earth’s mineral, energy, and groundwater resources are the result of past and current geoscience processes.
Clarification statement: Emphasis is on how these resources are limited and typically non-renewable, and how their distributions are significantly changing as a result of removal by humans. Examples of uneven distributions of resources as a result of past processes include but are not limited to petroleum (locations of the burial of organic marine sediments and subsequent geologic traps), metal ores (locations of past volcanic and hydrothermal activity associated with subduction zones), and soil (locations of active weathering and/or deposition of rock).
Chapters
Students see that each rock type forms only under certain conditions (slow cooling at depth, evaporating lakes, plate collisions), which is the background for why building stone, salt and metal ores are found in some places and not others. The lesson itself does not construct the resource-distribution explanation.
Aquifers, infiltration and the California connection slides give students the background they need for Lesson 19's explanation of why groundwater resources are distributed unevenly; this chapter does not assess the explanation itself.
Lab 1, Lab 3, W6 and W10 ask students to use geologic clues (past volcanic arcs, hydrothermal veins, buried marine sediments with traps, porous river gravels, rainfall and ancient climates) as evidence for where a resource is and is not, and to explain how pumping, drilling and mining are changing the pattern. That is the explanation the PE asks for, including its emphasis on limited supply and human removal.
Worksheets (10)
| Chapter | Worksheet | Role | How it connects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ch. 19 | W1 · A Line of Copper Mines: Why Here and Not There? Phenomenon exploration | supports | Noticing that the world's largest copper mines line up along present and past convergent plate boundaries is the entry point to the explanation this PE asks for. This sheet only records observations, prior knowledge and first ideas; the explanation is built in later worksheets. |
| Ch. 19 | W2 · Nature's Clock and Our Rate: Working With the Resource Words Vocabulary in action | supports | The PE's clarification says these resources are limited and typically nonrenewable. Students cannot explain that honestly until they can keep two ideas apart: the label, which comes from how long nature takes to replace a resource compared with a human lifetime, and the sustainability of a use, which compares the use rate with the replacement rate. This sheet builds that language. |
| Ch. 19 | W3 · Where the Oil Is: Four Things That Must Happen Before There Is an Oil Field Reading with evidence | practice | The passage lays out the chain of past geoscience processes (ancient sea, burial and heating, migration, trap) that explains the uneven distribution of petroleum, and the final questions ask students to use that chain as evidence in a written explanation. |
| Ch. 19 | W4 · From Magma to Mine, From Mud to Oil: Reading and Building Resource Models Diagrams and models | practice | Interpreting the formation flow and the trap layers, then constructing a geothermal cross-section, builds the process models students will cite as evidence when they explain uneven resource distribution in W6 and W10. |
| Ch. 19 | W5 · Tap Versus Drain: Aquifer Balance and Ore Grade by the Numbers Data and graphing | practice | The PE's clarification stresses that resource distributions are changing because of removal by humans. Computing an aquifer's water balance and the rock moved per tonne of copper gives students quantitative evidence for that change, which they will cite in explanations. |
| Ch. 19 | W6 · Two Wells, One Oil Field: A Claim-Evidence-Reasoning Case Claim, evidence, reasoning | assesses | Students write a scientific explanation, grounded in core-log evidence, for why an energy resource (petroleum) is unevenly distributed as the result of past geoscience processes (an ancient sea, burial and heating, migration and trapping). This is the PE as written, so the CER is scored against it. |
| Ch. 19 | W7 · Fixing Marisol's Exit Ticket: Where the Resource Ideas Go Wrong Error analysis | practice | Diagnosing wrong explanations for where petroleum, copper and groundwater come from, and why resources are or are not renewable, sharpens the accurate explanation this PE asks students to construct. |
| Ch. 19 | W8 · Four Regions, Five Resources: A Resource Detective Jigsaw Collaborative investigation | practice | Teams reason from geologic and climate evidence to the resources a region should have, which is the evidence-to-explanation move the PE requires; the individual section then asks each student to write one such explanation alone. |
| Ch. 19 | W9 · Power for Cinder Ridge: Choosing an Energy Source With Criteria and Constraints Transfer and design | supports | The winning option exists only because hot rock lies close to the surface at this plate-boundary site; the sheet asks students to say why the same choice would be impossible in a region without that geologic history. |
| Ch. 19 | W10 · Earth's Natural Resources: Mastery Check Retrieval and mastery check | assesses | Part B gives real evidence for oil in Kern County or gold in the Sierra Nevada foothills and asks for the explanation the PE describes: the past processes that concentrated the resource, why the neighboring area lacks it, and how human removal is changing the pattern. Items q1, q4 and q11 check the clarification's emphasis on limited, mostly nonrenewable resources whose distribution is changing as people remove them. |
Labs (4)
| Chapter | Lab | Role | How it connects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ch. 10 | Lab 3 · Where Should Pine Ridge Drill? A Geothermal Data Decision Data-driven decision | supports | The four sites show that usable geothermal heat is concentrated where past volcanic activity left hot rock near the surface, which previews the resource-distribution explanation developed in Lesson 19. |
| Ch. 19 | Lab 1 · The Calder Basin Treasure Mystery: Read the Clues, Place the Drills Evidence-based mystery | assesses | Students construct an evidence-based explanation of where mineral, energy and groundwater resources are concentrated in a region, citing past processes (subduction and hydrothermal fluids, burial of marine mud under a trap, long-term recharge) and judging which aquifers could be pumped sustainably. Analysis question q7 then asks how pumping and drilling would redraw the map, the 'current processes' half of the PE. |
| Ch. 19 | Lab 2 · The Cookie Mine: Ore Grade, Costs and What Mining Leaves Behind Physical model | practice | The model shows that a mineral resource is a concentration worth extracting, that extraction empties the deposit, and that the land is changed; it builds the human-removal half of the explanation but does not itself explain the geologic processes that made the concentration, which Lab 1 does. |
| Ch. 19 | Lab 3 · Dry Creek Decides: Aquifer Cups and a Twenty-Year Water Plan Data-driven decision | assesses | Students explain why three zones under one town hold and give up water so differently (sediment type, depth, past climate) and use recharge-versus-pumping arithmetic to show how human removal changes the supply. That is an evidence-based explanation of groundwater distribution shaped by past and current processes. |