SC15.ES.13

Science (2015) Grade(s): 09-12 - Environmental Science

SC15.ES.13

Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information based on evidence to explain how key natural resources (e.g., water sources, fertile soils, concentrations of minerals and fossil fuels), natural hazards, and climate changes influence human activity (e.g., mass migrations).

Unpacked Content

Scientific and Engineering Practices

Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

Crosscutting Concepts

Cause and Effect

Knowledge

Students know:
  • Examples of natural resources, natural hazards, and climate changes.
  • Over time, historical technological advances have been made in response to limited natural resources, increasing natural hazards, and climate change.
  • Resource availability has guided the development of human society.
  • Natural hazards have shaped the course of human history and have altered the sizes and distributions of human populations.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Gather, read, and evaluate scientific and/or technical information from multiple authoritative sources, assessing the evidence and usefulness of each source.
  • Analyze and interpret data regarding human activity over time, including how features of human societies have been affected by availability of natural resources and how human populations have depended on technological systems to acquire natural resources and modify physical settings.
  • Describe the reasoning for how the evidence allows for the distinction between causal and correlational relationships between environmental factors and human activity.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Resource availability has guided the development of human society.
  • Natural hazards, changes in climate, and the availability of natural resources have had and will continue to have an effect on the features of human society, including population sizes and migration patterns.
  • Technology has changed the cause and effect relationship between the development of human society and natural hazards, climate, and natural resources.

Vocabulary

  • natural hazards - earthquake, volcano, tsunami, soil erosion, hurricane, drought, flood
  • natural resources - fresh water, fertile soil, minerals, fossil fuels
  • climate change
  • acid precipitation
  • acid shock
  • biodegradable material
  • greenhouse gases
  • demographic change
  • desalinization
  • ecological footprint
  • fuel cell
  • hydroelectric energy
  • land use planning
  • leachate
  • limiting resource
  • migration
  • natural selection
  • nuclear energy
  • solar heating
  • petroleum
  • sustainability
  • urbanization
  • urban sprawl

Aligned Learning Resources

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