Kindergarten and grade 5
Earth's Systems and How They Interact
Four spheres, one sealed container, nothing added or taken away.
Scientists split Earth into four parts: rock, water, air and living things. The point is not the four names, it is that none of them work on their own. Algae sit exactly where all four meet. They live in water, take gas from the air, use minerals that came from rock, and feed most of what lives in the ocean. Seal a bag with algae in it and you have all four of those systems in one container, trading back and forth on a windowsill.
How the lab meets it
What students do that satisfies the standard
NGSS 5-ESS2-1
Standard: Develop a model using an example to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere interact.
What the kit does: The standard asks for an example, and most classrooms reach for a global diagram nobody can test. A sealed bag is the opposite. Water, air, minerals and living things are all inside it, in quantities a student can point at, and nothing enters or leaves for a week. The model students build is of something they watched.
NGSS K-ESS3-1
Standard: Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of plants and animals and the places they live.
What the kit does: The same bag, asked a simpler question. What is in here that keeps these things alive, and what would happen if it ran out. A kindergarten class draws the bag and labels what each living thing is using, which is a model in the sense the standard means it.
Why algae, specifically
Standard: The example that makes the interaction matter.
What the kit does: Roughly half of all photosynthesis on Earth happens in water, most of it done by organisms like the ones in this bag. That is the fact that turns a tidy four-sphere diagram into something worth caring about. The hydrosphere and the atmosphere are not just touching, they are trading carbon and oxygen constantly, and the biosphere doing the trading is mostly too small to see.
Free downloads
Our Lesson Plans
Each lesson is one Word file. Teacher pages and answer keys first, then the student pages behind the orange PRINT FROM HERE divider.
Who Changed the Water? Grades K to 2
What it covers: The water in the bag is different by the end of the week and nobody added a thing. Working out which of the living things did it is the lesson.
How it is built: One Word file. Teacher notes and answer keys up front, then the student pages behind the orange PRINT FROM HERE divider.
Where Did the Salt Go? Grades K to 5
What it covers: Salt stirred into water goes out of sight but not out of the glass. Rock and water meeting, which is two of the four spheres in a cup.
How it is built: One Word file. Teacher notes and answer keys up front, then the student pages behind the orange PRINT FROM HERE divider.
Administrator Guide
One guide for the whole elementary program rather than one per lesson. This is the copy to hand a principal or a curriculum director.