Mississippi Science E.8.9A.4
The Standard
- E.8.9A
- Students will demonstrate an understanding that physical processes and major geological events (e.g., plate movement, volcanic activity, mountain building, weathering, erosion) are powered by the Sun and the Earth's internal heat and have occurred over millions of years.
Research and assess the credibility of scientific ideas to debate and discuss how Earth’s constructive and destructive processes have changed Earth’s surface at varying time and spatial scales.
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Earth’s Systems and Cycles
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students research how eruptions, uplift, erosion, and deposition change land. They check who made each claim and what evidence supports it. They use that evidence to discuss changes that happen over different areas and time spans.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can use dated images to show where river erosion removes land and deposition builds a sandbar over years. They can compare that local change with mountain building across a region over millions of years. They can explain why their sources are trustworthy.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think constructive means helpful and destructive means harmful. They may assume all land changes take millions of years. A dramatic photo can also lead them to overestimate how much land changed.
How to Assess It
- Show two dated aerial photos of one river bend and an undated post claiming rivers only remove land. Ask students to mark where land was lost or gained, state the time between photos, and explain which source they trust.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Pour water through a sloped sand tray, photograph it before and after, and label where erosion removed sand and deposition built it up.
Compare dated USGS photos of a lava flow and riverbank; ask which changed faster, over what area, and why you trust the photos.
Rank three source cards about mountain uplift by author, date, and evidence; explain which best supports a claim about change over millions of years.
Use dated aerial images of a Mississippi River bend to track shifting banks over years and identify erosion and deposition.
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Related Standards
- ESS.4.2
Research, assess, and communicate how Earth’s systems influence the distribution of life, including how various natural hazards and geologic events (e.g., volca...
- E.8.9A.2
Explore and debate theories of plate tectonics to form conclusions about past and current movements of rocks at Earth's surface throughout history.
- E.3.7B.4
Compare and contrast constructive (e.g., deposition, volcano) and destructive (e.g., weathering, erosion, earthquake) processes of the Earth.
- ESS.4.1
Research, evaluate, and communicate about how human life on Earth shapes Earth’s systems and responds to the interaction of Earth’s systems (e.g., geosphere, hy...
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