MS-ESS2-1NGSS*ScienceEarth and Space ScienceGrades 6-8
MS-ESS2-1: Modeling the Rock Cycle and the Energy That Drives It
In plain English: MS-ESS2-1 is the NGSS middle school performance expectation that asks students to develop a model of how Earth's materials cycle through melting, crystallization, weathering, deformation and sedimentation, and of the energy that drives the cycle: Earth's internal heat and energy from the sun, with gravity moving material. It is usually taught in grade 6, 7 or 8 Earth science.
Develop a model to describe the cycling of Earth's materials and the flow of energy that drives this process.
Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on the processes of melting, crystallization, weathering, deformation, and sedimentation, which act together to form minerals and rocks through the cycling of Earth's materials.
Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include the identification and naming of minerals.
Next Generation Science Standards · Disciplinary Core Idea: Earth's Systems · Official standard
Students build and test a model of the rock cycle: the never-ending set of processes that change Earth's materials from one form of rock into another. There are three main kinds of rock. Igneous rock forms when magma (melted rock underground; called lava once it reaches the surface) cools and its crystals grow, a process called crystallization. Sedimentary rock forms when sediment (loose bits of rock, mud and shell) settles in layers, a process called deposition or sedimentation, and is then pressed together (compaction) and glued by minerals left behind by water (cementation). Metamorphic rock forms when heat and pressure deep underground bend, squeeze and change a rock without melting it, a process called deformation. Weathering breaks rock into sediment at the surface, and erosion carries that sediment away. Students trace the energy behind each step: Earth's internal heat drives melting, deformation and uplift, while energy from the sun drives the rain, ice and wind that weather and carry rock, and gravity pulls sediment downhill and presses buried layers together.
The NGSS Clarification Statement says: "Emphasis is on the processes of melting, crystallization, weathering, deformation, and sedimentation, which act together to form minerals and rocks through the cycling of Earth's materials." The Assessment Boundary says: "Assessment does not include the identification and naming of minerals." So this page names rocks (granite, basalt, sandstone, shale, slate) but never asks students to identify or name the minerals in them. Students do the practice of developing a model: they draw it, test it against rock samples and invented data, find its limits and revise it. Every data set is invented for teaching and labeled as invented. All hands-on work uses clay, rulers, hand lenses and rock samples; nothing is heated.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
Develop a model that shows how melting, crystallization, weathering, deformation and sedimentation change Earth materials from one form to another
Identify the energy source for each process in the model: Earth's internal heat, or energy from the sun with gravity
Use texture evidence (crystal size, layers, bands) and invented data to place rock samples in the model
Explain that the rock cycle recycles the same matter and has no fixed order
Evaluate a model of the rock cycle, find its limits and revise it
Prior Knowledge Required
Students should already be comfortable with:
Weathering and erosion by water, ice, wind and plants 4-ESS2-1
Interactions among the geosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere 5-ESS2-1
Melting and freezing as changes of state when thermal energy is added or removed
Pass around a small cup of beach or play sand and a hand lens. Let students look at the grains for one minute before the question appears.
Warm-Up Prompt
"Each of these sand grains was once part of a solid rock. Where might this grain have been one million years ago, and where could it be one million years from now? Draw its journey as boxes and arrows."
Collect a few drawings on the board. Many students draw a straight line that ends at the beach. Ask: "Does the journey stop there? What would it take to turn this sand back into solid rock?" Keep the drawings: students revise them at the end of the lesson.
Direct Instruction15-20 minutes
The model. Show Diagram 1. Each box is a form of Earth material, and each arrow is a process that changes one form into another. Matter is not made or used up: the same material is recycled again and again. Then add the energy. Earth's internal heat comes from heat left over from Earth's formation and from radioactive elements (atoms that slowly break apart and give off energy) inside the planet. It melts rock, drives deformation and pushes up mountains. Energy from the sun heats air and water, which drives wind, rain, snow and ice. Those move and break rock at the surface. Gravity pulls loose sediment downhill and makes it settle, and the weight of the layers above presses buried sediment together. Use Diagram 2 to show that rock gets hotter with depth, which is why melting and deformation happen deep underground.
Igneous rock to sedimentary rock
Granite (an igneous rock with large crystals) is exposed on a mountain. Rain, freezing water and plant roots break it into sand grains, and a river carries the grains to a lake, where they settle in layers and are later buried.
Result: Granite (weathering, erosion) → sand (deposition, compaction, cementation) → sandstone. Energy: the sun drives the rain and ice; gravity moves the grains downhill and the weight of later layers presses them together.
Compaction of buried mud
Invented data: a 12 m thick layer of wet mud on a lake bottom is buried under younger layers. Water is squeezed out, and the layer becomes 7.2 m of shale (a sedimentary rock made of mud).
Result: Change in thickness = 12 - 7.2 = 4.8 m. Percent lost = 4.8 ÷ 12 × 100 = 40%. The squeezing comes from gravity: the weight of the layers above.
Sedimentary rock to metamorphic rock
Two plates push together, and the shale is carried down to 10 km below the surface. Use the model in Diagram 2: the surface is 15 °C and the temperature rises 25 °C for each kilometer of depth.
Result: Temperature = 15 + 25 × 10 = 265 °C, well below the 650 °C at which some rock starts to melt. The pressure is about 2,600 times the air pressure at the surface. Heat and pressure deform the shale into slate (a metamorphic rock) without melting it. Energy: Earth's internal heat.
Melting and crystallization
Rock deep under a volcano melts into magma. Some magma erupts as lava and cools in a few days; some stays 5 km underground and cools over hundreds of thousands of years.
Result: Fast cooling: crystals have little time to grow, so basalt has crystals under 1 mm. Slow cooling: crystals grow for a long time, so granite has crystals several millimeters across. Energy: internal heat melts the rock; the rock crystallizes as that heat flows away.
Uplift brings deep rock back to the surface
A metamorphic rock formed 10 km underground. Uplift (the slow rise of land, pushed by plate motions) and erosion of the rock above it together bring it up 2 mm each year.
Result: 10 km = 10,000,000 mm. Time = 10,000,000 ÷ 2 = 5,000,000 years. Once at the surface, the rock can weather into sediment, and the cycle continues.
After each example, ask: "Which arrow in Diagram 1 is this? Which energy source drives it?" Point out that the arrows go in many directions: any kind of rock can be weathered, deformed or melted, so there is no fixed order around the cycle.
Guided Practice10-15 minutes
Pairs read the invented observation cards below. They place each sample on the class model and decide which process made it last. They describe the rocks by texture (crystal size, layers, bands, grains) only; no minerals are named.
Guided practice: invented observation cards for five rock samples
Sample
What students see with a hand lens
A
Interlocking crystals 3-8 mm across, no layers
B
Rounded grains about 0.5 mm across, glued together in flat layers
C
Flattened crystals lined up in wavy bands; the bands are folded
D
Crystals too small to see; small round holes left by gas bubbles
E
Thin flat layers of fine mud with broken shell pieces
Sort the five samples into igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rock, and write the evidence for each choice.
For each sample, name the last process that formed it and point to its arrow in Diagram 1.
Label each process with its energy source: internal heat, or the sun with gravity.
Choose one sample and draw the next arrow it could follow. Explain why a different arrow is also possible.
Independent Practice10-15 minutes
Each student models the journey of one sand grain using the invented time line below. They draw the journey as a flow diagram, label each arrow with its process and energy source, and answer: Which stage took the longest? About what percent of the whole journey was it? Which stages were driven mainly by the sun and gravity?
Independent practice: the invented journey of one sand grain
Stage
What happens
Time (years)
1
Weathering frees the grain from a granite cliff
20,000
2
A river carries the grain to the sea
3,000
3
The grain settles on the sea floor and is buried by new layers
400,000
4
Compaction and cementation turn the layers into sandstone
2,000,000
5
Plate motion carries the sandstone deep underground, where heat and pressure change it into metamorphic rock
10,000,000
Students should find a total of 12,423,000 years and see that Stage 5 alone is about 80% of it. Ask them to add one more arrow that would bring the grain back to the surface.
Closure5 minutes
Students revise their warm-up drawing so that it becomes a cycle with at least one arrow driven by each energy source. Exit ticket: "Name one process in your model driven by Earth's internal heat and one driven by the sun. What would happen to the cycle if Earth's interior cooled completely?"
Differentiation Strategies
For Struggling Students
Give a partly filled copy of Diagram 1 with the boxes drawn and the arrow labels in a word bank
Use three colors of sticky notes for the energy sources so students sort by color before they write explanations
Pair each new word (deposition, compaction, deformation) with a hand motion: sprinkle, press, squeeze
For Advanced Students
Ask students to add arrows for shortcuts, such as igneous rock that is deformed directly, and to give an example place for each
Have students use Diagram 2 to compare where melting starts if the temperature rises 20 °C or 30 °C per kilometer instead of 25 °C
Ask students to write a short critique of a textbook rock cycle picture: what it shows well and what it leaves out
Assessment Guidance
What to Look For
Check that every arrow in a student model names a process, not only a rock type, and that each arrow has an energy source. Look for students who say the sun melts rock underground, or who think rocks must go around the cycle in one order. Listen for evidence statements that use texture ("large crystals, so it cooled slowly") instead of color alone, and check that no one is asked to name minerals.
02
Classroom Activities
3 Activities
1
Clay Rock Cycle Model
25 minGroups of 3-4
Groups use three colors of modeling clay to act out each process in the rock cycle, record what each step stands for and measure how much a layer of "sediment" thins when it is pressed. Nothing is heated: melting is shown with a card and a mixing step, and the group discusses what the model gets wrong.
Procedure
Weathering: break a walnut-sized lump of each color into crumbs with your fingers or a plastic knife. This stands for rain, ice and roots breaking rock.
Erosion and deposition: carry the crumbs on a sheet of wax paper and sprinkle them in three flat layers, one color at a time. Measure the height of the loose layers with a millimeter ruler.
Compaction: cover the layers with wax paper, press them under a stack of books for 2 minutes and measure again. This is your sedimentary rock.
Deformation: squeeze the block from both ends with your hands until the layers bend into folds. This is your metamorphic rock.
Melting and crystallization: read the Melting card ("Deep underground, rock reaches about 650-1,200 °C and melts"), roll the clay into one ball until the colors mix, and pinch it into new pieces. This is your igneous rock.
For each step, put a sticky note on your record sheet with the energy source it stands for. Wash hands after handling clay.
Sample Data (invented)
One group's loose crumb layers were 24 mm high. After pressing under books, the block was 15 mm high, so it thinned by 9 mm, which is 9 ÷ 24 = 37.5% of its height.
Discussion Questions
Your layers got 9 mm thinner when pressed. What force does the stack of books stand for, and where does that force come from in the real Earth?
Which steps stood for processes driven by Earth's internal heat, and which for processes driven by the sun and gravity?
Name two ways this model is not like the real rock cycle (think about time, temperature and what holds real sediment together).
Modification for Distance Learning
Students use bread, crackers or paper scraps at home for the weathering and compaction steps, photograph each stage and post the photos with labels for process and energy source.
2
Crystal Size Detectives
20 minPairs
Pairs use hand lenses and millimeter rulers to compare crystal sizes in a granite sample and a basalt sample, then analyze an invented data table that links cooling time to crystal size. They use the evidence to decide where each rock cooled and add the result to their rock cycle model.
Procedure
Measure the longest side of five different crystals in the granite sample and record each length to the nearest millimeter. Find the mean.
Try the same with the basalt sample. Record what you see if the crystals are too small to measure.
Study the data table below and describe the pattern in one sentence.
Do not scratch or break the samples; handle them over a tray.
Sample Data (invented)
Granite crystals: 4, 6, 5, 7 and 3 mm (mean 5 mm). Basalt: crystals too small to measure with a millimeter ruler.
Where the melted rock cooled
Time to cool (rounded)
Average crystal size
Top surface of a lava flow
about 1 day
under 0.1 mm
Middle of a thick lava flow
about 5 years
0.5 mm
Magma in a crack 500 m underground
about 1,000 years
2 mm
Large body of magma 6 km underground
about 500,000 years
8 mm
Discussion Questions
Where in the table did the granite sample most likely cool? Use its mean crystal size as evidence.
The cooling time grows 500 times from the crack to the large magma body, but the crystal size grows only 4 times. What does that tell you about using crystal size to estimate cooling time?
Which energy source melted the rock in the first place, and where did that energy go as the rock cooled?
Challenge Variation
Pairs sketch a graph of crystal size against cooling time and explain why the points would be easier to read if the time axis went up by multiples of 10 instead of equal steps.
3
Rock Cycle Pathway Cards: Build and Critique a Model
20 minGroups of 3-4
Each group gets 12 cards: 5 material cards (magma, igneous rock, sediment, sedimentary rock, metamorphic rock) and 7 process cards (melting, cooling and crystallization, weathering, erosion and transport, deposition, compaction and cementation, deformation by heat and pressure). Groups build a model on chart paper, add an energy sticky note to every process, and then critique a sample student model.
Procedure
Lay out the 5 material cards and connect them with the 7 process cards as arrows. A process card may be used for more than one arrow if you draw extra copies.
Add a sticky note to each process: yellow for energy from the sun, blue for Earth's internal heat, green for gravity. Some processes get two notes.
Find at least two different paths from sediment back to sediment.
Sample Model to Critique
A student drew this model: "Igneous rock → weathering → sediment → compaction → sedimentary rock → melting → magma → cooling → igneous rock. The sun's heat melts the rock underground."
Discussion Questions
Which kind of rock is missing from the sample model, and which process card would add it?
What is wrong with the energy statement, and how would you rewrite it?
The sample model has only one path. Name one arrow your group drew that does not appear in it.
Modification for Distance Learning
Students drag the 12 cards on a shared slide, add colored arrows for the energy sources and record a one-minute voice explanation of one path.
03
Diagrams & Visual Aids
2 diagrams
Diagram 1: A Rock Cycle Model with Its Energy Sources
Boxes are forms of Earth material and arrows are processes. Solid arrows are driven by Earth's internal heat; dashed arrows are driven by energy from the sun, with gravity moving and pressing the sediment. The uplift step on the metamorphic-to-sediment arrow is driven by internal heat, and the weathering after it by the sun. Any rock can also melt, so more arrows could point to magma.
Diagram 2: Rock Temperature Rises with Depth (Simplified Model)
A simplified model of continental crust, drawn to scale: the surface is 15 °C and the temperature rises 25 °C for each kilometer of depth (many places on the continents measure about 20-30 °C per kilometer near the surface). Some rock starts to melt at about 650 °C when water is present, which in this model happens about 25 km down.
04
Homework Assignment
~30 min
MS-ESS2-1 Homework: Modeling the Rock Cycle and Its Energy
Directions: All data are invented for practice. Draw models with boxes for materials and arrows for processes, and label every arrow with its energy source. Show each calculation with units.
Part 1: Build the Model (Problems 1-2)
A lava flow on an island cools into a dark rock with crystals too small to see. (a) Develop a model (boxes and arrows) that follows this rock's material until it becomes part of a metamorphic rock. Use at least four processes. (b) Label the energy source for every arrow. (c) Write one sentence that explains where Earth's internal heat comes from.
An 8.0 m layer of wet mud is buried and becomes a 5.2 m layer of shale. (a) By how many meters did the layer thin? (b) What percent of its thickness did it lose? (c) Which force squeezed the mud, and what supplied it?
Part 2: Energy in the Cycle (Problems 3-4)
In one region the surface rock is 20 °C and the temperature rises 30 °C for each kilometer of depth. (a) What is the temperature 10 km down? (b) At what depth does the rock reach 650 °C, where some rock begins to melt if water is present? (c) Which energy source makes the rock hotter with depth?
A metamorphic rock that formed 18 km underground is now exposed in a mountain. (a) If uplift and erosion together brought it up 1.5 mm each year, how long did the trip take? (b) Which part of the trip was driven by Earth's internal heat, and which by the sun and gravity?
Part 3: Analyze Data and Critique Models (Problems 5-6)
Invented crystal lengths (mm) for three igneous rocks: Rock P: 0.2, 0.3, 0.2, 0.4, 0.4. Rock Q: 6, 8, 7, 9, 5. Rock R: 2, 3, 2.5, 3.5, 2. (a) Find the mean crystal length of each rock. (b) Rank the rocks from shortest to longest cooling time. (c) Which rock most likely cooled deepest underground? Explain with the data.
A classmate writes: "Rocks always go igneous → sedimentary → metamorphic → igneous, in that order. The sun's heat melts rock deep underground." (a) Identify two errors. (b) Draw a corrected model that includes at least two paths the classmate left out. (c) Explain what drives melting instead.
Rubric
Criterion
Full Credit (2 pts)
Partial Credit (1 pt)
Model
Boxes for materials, arrows for processes, and more than one path; matches the rocks in the problem
Model has boxes and arrows but one path only or a missing process
Energy Sources
Every arrow is labeled with internal heat, or the sun with gravity, and the labels are correct
Some arrows labeled, or one energy source wrong
Data and Calculations
Means, percents, temperatures and times correct with units, and used as evidence
Correct method with one calculation or unit error
Critique
Names specific errors, explains why they are wrong and gives a corrected version
Names an error without a correction
05
Quiz: 20 Questions
Interactive, with answers
Instructions
All data are invented for practice. Use the rock cycle model and Diagram 2 where they help. Your score updates as you answer, and Reset quiz clears everything so you or your students can try again.
Multiple choice: pick an option to check it. Short answer: write your answer, then reveal the model answer.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Deep underground, rock melts into magma. Which energy source drives this melting?
Answer: B
Melting happens deep underground, where Earth's internal heat makes rock hot. Choice A is a common error: sunlight warms only the surface. Choices C and D are surface processes driven by the sun.
Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which process turns loose sediment into solid sedimentary rock?
Answer: C
Buried sediment is pressed together (compaction) and glued by minerals left by water (cementation). Choice A makes igneous rock. Choice B breaks rock into sediment, the opposite direction. Choice D changes rock into metamorphic rock.
Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice
A granite sample has interlocking crystals 5-10 mm across. What does this evidence suggest about how it formed?
Answer: A
Large crystals need a long time to grow, so the magma cooled slowly, deep underground. Choice B would make crystals too small to see. Choices C and D describe sedimentary and metamorphic textures, not interlocking crystals.
Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Use the model: the surface is 15 °C and the temperature rises 25 °C for each kilometer of depth. What is the temperature 12 km down?
Answer: C
Temperature = 15 + 25 × 12 = 15 + 300 = 315 °C. Choice A forgets to add the 15 °C at the surface. Choice B multiplies 12 by 15, using the surface temperature as the rise per kilometer. Choice D adds 15 + 25 and ignores the depth.
Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Rain, ice and wind break down rock and carry the pieces away. Which energy source mainly drives these processes?
Answer: D
The sun heats air and water, which drives wind, rain and snow; gravity pulls water, ice and sediment downhill. Choices A, B and C all describe energy from inside Earth, which drives melting and deformation, not surface weathering.
Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice
What happens to a rock during deformation?
Answer: B
Deformation is the bending, squeezing and changing of solid rock by heat and pressure without melting, which makes metamorphic rock. Choice A is melting and crystallization. Choice C is weathering, and choice D is deposition.
Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice
A model shows only one arrow leaving sedimentary rock: "sedimentary rock → metamorphic rock." Which arrow would make the model more accurate?
Answer: A
Sedimentary rock that is lifted to the surface can be weathered back into sediment, so the model needs that arrow too. Choice B skips steps: sediment must be buried and heated before it melts. Choice C reverses crystallization, and choice D skips the sediment step and does not leave sedimentary rock.
Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Invented data: a 10 m layer of mud is buried and becomes 7 m of shale. What percent of its thickness did it lose?
Answer: D
It lost 10 - 7 = 3 m, and 3 ÷ 10 × 100 = 30%. Choice A is the percent that is left. Choice B divides by the final thickness (3 ÷ 7). Choice C writes the 3 m change as if it were a percent.
Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Where does most of Earth's internal heat come from?
Answer: C
Earth's internal heat comes from heat left over from the planet's formation and from radioactive elements that give off energy as they break apart. Choice A is a common misconception: sunlight warms only the top few meters of ground. Choices B and D add tiny amounts of energy at the surface only.
Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice
A dark rock has crystals too small to see and many small round holes left by gas bubbles. Where did it most likely form?
Answer: B
Tiny crystals mean fast cooling, and gas bubbles escape from lava at the surface, so this is lava that cooled quickly. Choice A would give large crystals. Choices C and D describe sedimentary and metamorphic rock, which do not form from cooling melt.
Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Invented data, average crystal size of four igneous rocks: W, too small to see; X, 0.5 mm; Y, 9 mm; Z, 3 mm. Which rock most likely took the longest to cool?
Answer: D
Larger crystals mean slower cooling, and Y has the largest crystals (9 mm). Choice A reverses the pattern: W cooled fastest. Choice C, Z, has the second-largest crystals, so it cooled for less time than Y.
Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which statement about the rock cycle is accurate?
Answer: A
Any kind of rock can be weathered into sediment, deformed into metamorphic rock or melted into magma, so the cycle has many paths. Choice B ignores those paths. Choices C and D are false: metamorphic and sedimentary rock can melt, and all three kinds can weather into sediment.
Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Uplift and erosion together bring a buried rock up 2 mm each year. How long does it take to rise from 8 km down to the surface?
Answer: C
8 km = 8,000,000 mm, and 8,000,000 ÷ 2 = 4,000,000 years. Choice A multiplies 8,000,000 mm by 2 instead of dividing. Choice B divides 8,000 m by 2 as if meters were millimeters. Choice D uses 800,000 mm for 8 km, a slip of one zero.
Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In the rock cycle model, what happens to the amount of rock material over time?
Answer: B
The same matter changes form again and again; no new material is made and none is used up. Choice C is a common idea, but eroded sediment still exists and becomes new rock. Choices A and D suggest new matter appears, which the model does not show.
Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer
Trace a path that turns sandstone into igneous rock. Name each process and the energy source that drives it.
One path: sandstone is carried deep underground by plate motion, where Earth's internal heat raises its temperature until it melts into magma (internal heat). The magma rises and cools and crystallizes into igneous rock as its heat flows away into the surrounding rock or the air. A path that goes through metamorphic rock first (deformation, then melting) is also correct. Every step here is driven by Earth's internal heat.
Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer
In one region the surface is 10 °C and the temperature rises 20 °C for each kilometer of depth. How deep is the rock when it reaches 650 °C?
The rise needed is 650 - 10 = 640 °C, and 640 ÷ 20 = 32 km. At that depth some rock can begin to melt if water is present.
Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer
In a clay model of the rock cycle, students press crumbs under books and then squeeze the block into folds. Give one way the model is like the real rock cycle and one way it is not.
Like: pressing loose crumbs into a solid block models compaction, and squeezing the layers into folds models deformation; the same clay is reused, as matter is recycled. Not like: real compaction and deformation take thousands to millions of years, real deformation needs high temperatures (hundreds of degrees), and real sediment is also glued by cementation, which the clay does not show.
Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer
Invented data: a pebble is weathered out of a cliff (5,000 years), carried by a river (1,000 years), buried and cemented into rock (3,000,000 years) and then deformed deep underground (6,000,000 years). Find the total time and the percent of it spent in the stage driven by Earth's internal heat.
Total = 5,000 + 1,000 + 3,000,000 + 6,000,000 = 9,006,000 years. The deformation stage is driven by internal heat: 6,000,000 ÷ 9,006,000 × 100 ≈ 67%.
Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer
Explain why the rock cycle needs both Earth's internal heat and energy from the sun. What would stop if each one disappeared?
Internal heat melts rock, deforms it and pushes up new mountains. Without it, no new igneous or metamorphic rock would form, and the land would slowly wear down to sediment. Energy from the sun drives the rain, ice and wind that weather and carry rock. Without it, rock at the surface would not break down or move, so no new sediment or sedimentary rock would form. With both, the materials keep cycling.
Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer
A rock in a mountain has flattened crystals lined up in wavy, folded bands. Explain how it formed and what energy drove the change.
The bands and folds are evidence of deformation: the rock was buried deep underground, where heat and pressure bent it and lined up its crystals without melting it, so it is metamorphic rock. The heat comes from Earth's internal heat, and the pressure comes from the weight of rock above and from plates pushing together.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
06
Frequently Asked Questions
10 Questions
What does MS-ESS2-1 mean?
MS-ESS2-1 asks middle school students to develop a model of the rock cycle that shows how Earth's materials change form and what energy drives those changes. The code means Middle School, Earth and Space Science, core idea 2 (Earth's Systems), performance expectation 1.
Is MS-ESS2-1 taught in grade 6, 7 or 8?
It depends on the school. MS-ESS2-1 is a middle school standard for grades 6-8, and it often sits in an Earth science unit with MS-ESS2-2 (surface processes) and MS-ESS2-3 (plate motions). In some integrated courses it is taught next to MS-PS1-4, because melting and crystallization are changes of state.
What energy drives the rock cycle?
Two sources do: Earth's internal heat and energy from the sun. Internal heat, from the planet's formation and from radioactive elements, drives melting, deformation and uplift. The sun drives the wind, rain and ice that weather and carry rock, and gravity pulls sediment downhill and presses buried layers together.
What is the assessment boundary for MS-ESS2-1?
The official Assessment Boundary says assessment does not include the identification and naming of minerals. Students can describe crystal size, layers and bands, and they can name rock types, but quizzes should not ask them to identify specific minerals.
Do rocks go around the rock cycle in a fixed order?
No. Any kind of rock can be weathered into sediment, deformed into metamorphic rock or melted into magma. A rock can skip steps or repeat one many times, so a good model has arrows in several directions, not a single circle.
How long does the rock cycle take?
Most paths take millions of years, but single steps vary widely. Lava can cool into rock in days, a landslide moves sediment in minutes, and burial, deformation and uplift take millions of years. That is why students use models and data instead of watching one rock go around the cycle.
Can students melt crayons to model the rock cycle?
Students should not heat wax or crayons. This lesson uses modeling clay with no heat, and melting is shown with a card and a mixing step. If a teacher wants to show real melting and cooling, it should be a teacher-only demonstration with the teacher in control of the heat source, or a video.
What is the difference between weathering and erosion?
Weathering breaks rock into smaller pieces where it sits; erosion picks up those pieces and carries them away. Freezing water cracking a boulder is weathering, and a river carrying the broken pieces downstream is erosion. Both are driven mainly by the sun, with gravity.
How does MS-ESS2-1 connect to the water cycle?
The water cycle (MS-ESS2-4) is one of the engines of the rock cycle. Sun-driven evaporation leads to rain and snow, which weather rock, and rivers and glaciers carry the sediment. Water also carries dissolved material that cements sediment into rock.
What comes after MS-ESS2-1 in high school?
HS-ESS2-3 asks students to model Earth's interior and the cycling of matter by mantle convection, which explains where the internal heat goes. HS-ESS2-1 asks how internal and surface processes build and wear down landforms at different scales. Both build on the rock cycle model from MS-ESS2-1.
07
Related Standards
6 standards
These standards connect to MS-ESS2-1: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.
Before this lesson
4-ESS2-1Prerequisite
Observe or measure the effects of weathering and the rate of erosion
Lesson coming soon
5-ESS2-1Prerequisite
Model how the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere interact
Lesson coming soon
Alongside
MS-ESS2-4Parallel
Model the cycling of water through Earth's systems, driven by sunlight and gravity
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