Changing Earth

Earth Sciences

4. The properties of rocks and minerals reflect the processes that formed them. As a basis for understanding this concept:
   1. Students know how to differentiate among igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks by referring to their properties and methods of formation (the rock cycle).
   2. Students know how to identify common rock-forming minerals (including quartz, calcite, feldspar, mica, and hornblende) and ore minerals by using a table of diagnostic properties.
      
       
5. Waves, wind, water, and ice shape and reshape Earth's land surface. As a basis for understanding this concept:
   1. Students know some changes in the earth are due to slow processes, such as erosion, and some changes are due to rapid processes, such as landslides, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes.
   2. Students know natural processes, including freezing and thawing and the growth of roots, cause rocks to break down into smaller pieces.
   3. Students know moving water erodes landforms, reshaping the land by taking it away from some places and depositing it as pebbles, sand, silt, and mud in other places (weathering, transport, and deposition).