Earth’s Spheres 5-ESS2-1

Item description

Your students are going to love this lesson on the Earth’s Spheres. This lesson covers the biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere and their interactions. This lesson is easy to follow and fun to use and teach with. No prep, just print and teach.

This lesson has been designed to align with the NGSS standard 5-ESS2-1 “ develop a model using an example to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and/or atmosphere interact”.

 Bottle Biomes Reading Comprehension – students read about the oldest bottle garden in the world. This garden hasn’t been watered in 40 years! They will compare this sealed biome to the Earth and answer questions based on the passage.

 Make Your Own Bottle Biome – this is a fun activity the students will remember. In this experiment they’re going to make their own bottle biome. They’ll see photosynthesis, water evaporation and condensation (rain). Once their biome is up and running they only need to observe it. Their biome may last for years.

 Biosphere – students read about the Earth’s biosphere and biomes and answer questions based on the text. A fun coloring activity accompanies this where they color biomes and describe the animal and plant life found there.

 Geosphere – students read about the Earth’s geosphere and the world’s deepest hole. A fun coloring activity accompanies this where they label and color two diagrams to help them understand the layers of the earth.

 Hydrosphere – this activity asks students to answer T/F to a series of questions on the Earth’s hydrosphere.

 Atmosphere – the students are given facts about the atmosphere and the different layers. They can color in their diagram and add images to make the layers more memorable.

 Figure It Out – the Water Cycle. In this activity the students must try to figure out the journey of a drop of water from observing a diagram of the water cycle.

 Oceans, Wind, Mountains – the effect of mountain ranges on climate is investigated in this activity. Students will then draw their own labelled diagram to illustrate their understanding. I’ve also included a photo showing this effect and the students will study it and answer questions.