HS-ESS2-1 | Earth's Surface Processes

Develop a model to illustrate how Earth’s internal and surface processes operate at different spatial and temporal scales to form continental and ocean-floor features.

Clarification statement: Emphasis is on how the appearance of land features (such as mountains, valleys, and plateaus) and sea-floor features (such as trenches, ridges, and seamounts) are a result of both constructive processes (such as volcanism, tectonic uplift, and deposition) and destructive processes (such as weathering, subduction, and coastal erosion).

Assessment boundary: Assessment does not include recalling the details of the formation of specific geographic features of Earth’s surface.

Performance Level Descriptions

Every Regents exam question on HS-ESS2-1 is written to match one of the performance level descriptions (PLDs) below.

Level 1: Use a model to determine whether a continental or ocean-floor feature results from Earth's internal and/or surface process(es) (constructive and/or destructive) or to identify the distribution of rocks and/or minerals within Earth's crust.

Level 2: Use a model to identify Earth's internal and/or surface process(es) (constructive and/or destructive) that operate at different spatial or temporal scales to form continental and/or ocean-floor features or to identify an Earth surface or internal process that forms continental or oceanic floor features or to explain the distribution of rocks and/or minerals within Earth's crust.

Level 3: Use a model to explain how Earth's internal and/or surface processes (constructive and/or destructive) operate at different spatial or temporal scales to form continental and/or ocean-floor features or to explain the distribution of rocks and/or minerals within Earth's crust.

Level 4: Develop a model to illustrate how Earth's internal and surface processes operate at different spatial and temporal scales to form continental and ocean-floor features.

Level 5: Develop a complex model which allows for manipulation and testing that demonstrates the relationships between Earth's internal and surface processes responsible for the formation of continental and ocean-floor features across varying spatial and temporal scales.

Resources

Examples and discussion of resources for the learning, teaching, and assessment of HS-ESS2-1.

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Regents Exam Questions

Released New York State Regents exam questions that assess HS-ESS2-1 are listed here by exam and question cluster. Each link opens the question with its answer key.

NGSS Dimensions

Performance expectation HS-ESS2-1 was developed using the following elements from the NRC document A Framework for K-12 Science Education:

Science and Engineering Practices

Developing and using models: Develop a model based on evidence to illustrate the relationships between systems or between components of a system.

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Earth materials and systems: Earth’s systems, being dynamic and interacting, cause feedback effects that can increase or decrease the original changes.
Plate tectonics and large-scale system interactions: Plate tectonics is the unifying theory that explains the past and current movements of the rocks at Earth’s surface and provides a framework for understanding its geologic history.
Plate tectonics and large-scale system interactions: Plate movements are responsible for most continental and ocean-floor features and for the distribution of most rocks and minerals within Earth’s crust.

Crosscutting Concepts

Stability and change: Change and rates of change can be quantified and modeled over very short or very long periods of time. Some system changes are irreversible.

Page contributors: Conrad Richman, Caroline Leonard

Earth and Space Science | HS. History of the Earth