These materials have been reviewed for their alignment with the Next Generation Science Standards as detailed below.

Overview

Students engage with an online GIS storymap and discuss the fundamental question: Is there enough land for everything? They consider what it means for land to be "arable." Students examine how soil is used in a variety of everyday objects and products. They learn the basic soil processes and how soil is formed.

Science and Engineering Practices

Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information: Critically read scientific literature adapted for classroom use to determine the central ideas or conclusions and/or to obtain scientific and/or technical information to summarize complex evidence, concepts, processes, or information presented in a text by paraphrasing them in simpler but still accurate terms. HS-P8.1:

Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information: Compare, integrate and evaluate sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a scientific question or solve a problem. HS-P8.2:

Engaging in Argument from Evidence: Make and defend a claim based on evidence about the natural world or the effectiveness of a design solution that reflects scientific knowledge and student-generated evidence. HS-P7.5:

Engaging in Argument from Evidence: Construct, use, and/or present an oral and written argument or counter-arguments based on data and evidence. HS-P7.4:

Developing and Using Models: Develop and/or use a model (including mathematical and computational) to generate data to support explanations, predict phenomena, analyze systems, and/or solve problems. HS-P2.6:

Asking Questions and Defining Problems: ask questions to determine relationships, including quantitative relationships, between independent and dependent variables HS-P1.3:

Asking Questions and Defining Problems: ask questions that arise from examining models or a theory, to clarify and/or seek additional information and relationships. HS-P1.2:

Asking Questions and Defining Problems: Ask questions that arise from careful observation of phenomena, or unexpected results, to clarify and/or seek additional information. HS-P1.1:

Analyzing and Interpreting Data: Analyze data using tools, technologies, and/or models (e.g., computational, mathematical) in order to make valid and reliable scientific claims or determine an optimal design solution. HS-P4.1:

Cross Cutting Concepts

Scale, Proportion and Quantity: Using the concept of orders of magnitude allows one to understand how a model at one scale relates to a model at another scale. HS-C3.4:

Patterns: Mathematical representations are needed to identify some patterns HS-C1.4:

Patterns: Different patterns may be observed at each of the scales at which a system is studied and can provide evidence for causality in explanations of phenomena HS-C1.1:

Patterns: Classifications or explanations used at one scale may fail or need revision when information from smaller or larger scales is introduced; thus requiring improved investigations and experiments. HS-C1.2:

Cause and effect: Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects. HS-C2.1:

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Natural Resources: Resource availability has guided the development of human society. HS-ESS3.A1:

Earth Materials and Systems: Earth’s systems, being dynamic and interacting, cause feedback effects that can increase or decrease the original changes. HS-ESS2.A1:

Cycles of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems: Plants or algae form the lowest level of the food web. At each link upward in a food web, only a small fraction of the matter consumed at the lower level is transferred upward, to produce growth and release energy in cellular respiration at the higher level. Given this inefficiency, there are generally fewer organisms at higher levels of a food web. Some matter reacts to release energy for life functions, some matter is stored in newly made structures, and much is discarded. The chemical elements that make up the molecules of organisms pass through food webs and into and out of the atmosphere and soil, and they are combined and recombined in different ways. At each link in an ecosystem, matter and energy are conserved. HS-LS2.B2:

Cycles of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems: Photosynthesis and cellular respiration are important components of the carbon cycle, in which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and geosphere through chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes. HS-LS2.B3:

Performance Expectations

Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics: Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales. HS-LS2-2:

Earth's Systems: Construct an argument based on evidence about the simultaneous coevolution of Earth’s systems and life on Earth. HS-ESS2-7:

Earth's Systems: Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth's surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems. HS-ESS2-2:

Earth and Human Activity: Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity. HS-ESS3-6:

Earth and Human Activity: Create a computational simulation to illustrate the relationships among management of natural resources, the sustainability of human populations, and biodiversity. HS-ESS3-3: