Students reinforce their understanding of rocks, the rock cycle, and geotechnical engineering by playing a trivia game. They work in groups to prepare Jeopardy-type trivia questions (answers) and compete against each other to demonstrate their knowledge of rocks and engineering.

Rocks cover the earth's surface, including what is below or near human-made structures. With rocks everywhere, breaking rocks can be hazardous and potentially disastrous to people. Students are introduced to three types of material stress related to rocks: compressional, torsional and shear. They learn about rock types (sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic), and about the occurrence of stresses and weathering in nature, including physical, chemical and biological weathering.

In this lesson, students learn about major landforms (e.g., mountains, rivers, plains, valleys, canyons and plateaus) and how they occur on the Earth's surface. They learn about the civil and geotechnical engineering applications of geology and landforms, including the design of transportation systems, mining, mapping and measuring natural hazards.

To experience the three types of material stress related to rocks — tensional, compressional and shear — students break bars of soap using only their hands. They apply force created by the muscles in their own hands to put pressure on the soap, a model for the larger scale, real-world phenomena that forms, shapes and moves the rocks of our planet. They also learn the real-life implications of understanding stress in rocks, both for predicting natural hazards and building safe structures.

Students learn the basics about soil, including its formation, characteristics and importance. They are also introduced to soil profiles and how engineers conduct site investigations to learn about soil quality for development, contamination transport, and assessing the general environmental health of an area.

Students learn about solar energy and how to calculate the amount of solar energy available at a given location and time of day on Earth. The importance of determining incoming solar energy for solar devices is discussed.

The course offers an introduction to quantitative analysis of geomorphic processes,and examines the interaction of climate, tectonics, and surface processes in the sculpting of Earth's surface.

This series of 5 high-quality, standards-aligned, inquiry-based lessons have been field-tested by the fifth grade students of Wequiock Children's Center for Environmental Science and their teachers. These lessons encourage students to use natural areas around their school as they improve their science and engineering skills as part of a unit on earth's systems. Created as a part of a WISELearn OER Innovation project, Connect, Explore, and Engage: Using the Environment as the Context for Science Learning was a collaboration of the Wequiock Children's Center for Environmental Science and the Wisconsin Green Schools Network. One of the goals of the project was to create standards-aligned lessons that utilize the outdoor spaces of the school . These lessons were created to take place during late winter. A stewardship project to reduce the impact of stormwater run-off was planned for the spring.

This lesson explores weathering, wearing away rock by exposure to the elements. Students will explore the connection between weather and sand using sugar cubes.