National Science Education Standards

 Unifying Concepts and Processes    Earth and Space Science    History and Nature of Science

Artist's conception of the movement of the Pacific Plate over the fixed Hawaiian "Hot Spot." (Modified from a drawing provided by Maurice Krafft, Centre de Volcanologie, France).

These excerpts from National Science Education Standards (NSES) relate to the study of plate tectonics in middle school.

Unifying Concepts and Processes

As a result of activities in grades K-12, all students should develop understanding and abilities aligned with the following concepts and processes:

• Evidence, models, and explanation
• Constancy, change, and measurement
• Evolution and equilibrium

Earth and Space Science

As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop understanding of:

Structure of the Earth System

• The solid earth is layered with a lithosphere; hot, convecting mantle; and dense, metallic core.
• Lithospheric plates on the scales of continents and oceans constantly move at rates of centimeters per year in response to movements in the mantle. Major geological events, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mountain building, result from these plate motions.

Earth's History

• The earth processes we see today, including erosion, movement of lithospheric plates, and changes in atmospheric composition, are similar to those that occurred in the past. Earth history is also influenced by occasional catastrophes, such as the impact of an asteroid or comet.

History and Nature of Science

As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop understanding of:

History of Science

• Tracing the history of science can show how difficult it was for scientific innovators to break through the accepted ideas of their time to reach the conclusions that we currently take for granted.

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Copyright November 2004 — The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0424671. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.