GEMS Correlations with the Florida Sunshine State Standards

Grade Level Expectations and Benchmarks for Science
Grades 6–8

Strand D: Processes that Shape the Earth


Return to Sunshine State Standards Page


Standard 1: The student recognizes that processes in the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere interact to shape the Earth.

Benchmark SC.D.1.3.1: The student knows that mechanical and chemical activities shape and reshape the Earth’s land surface by eroding rock and soil in some areas and depositing them in other areas, sometimes in seasonal layers.


Sixth Grade

l. understands that the surface of the Earth is constantly changing due to mechanical and chemical action.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Environmental Detectives, River Cutters, Stories in Stone, Plate Tectonics

Seventh Grade

1. knows the relationship between run-off and the development of a river system.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: River Cutters

2. understands the action of ground water to form aquifers, caverns, and sinkholes.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Environmental Detectives

3. knows the ways in which the Earth’s surface is eroded and reshaped (for example, weathering, erosion, deposition).

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Environmental Detectives, River Cutters, Stories in
Stone, Plate Tectonics

Eighth Grade

1. uses observations and tests to identify mineral samples.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Stories in Stone

2. understands how sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks are formed and categorized.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Stories in Stone

Benchmark SC.D.1.3.2: The student knows that over the whole Earth, organisms are growing, dying, and decaying as new organisms are produced by the old ones.

Sixth Grade

2. knows ways the systems of Earth change over time and predicts the causes of the change.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Acid Rain, Environmental Detectives, Stories in Stone, Plate Tectonics

Eighth Grade

1. knows that over the whole Earth, organisms are growing, dying, and decaying and new organisms are being produced.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Acid Rain

Benchmark SC.D.1.3.3: The student knows how conditions that exist in one system influence the conditions that exist in other systems.

Sixth Grade

1. knows that different events on the Earth change features on Earth (for example, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes).

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: River Cutters, Stories in Stone, Plate Tectonics

Seventh Grade

1. understands that changes on the surface of the Earth affect living systems.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Global Warming


Eighth Grade

1. knows ways conditions that exist in one system influence the conditions that exist in other systems (for example, the relationship between mountain building, island formation, and trench formation; interactions between the atmosphere and hydrosphere affect weather patterns).

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Convection, Global Warming, Ocean Currents, Plate Tectonics

Benchmark SC.D.1.3.4: The student knows the ways in which plants and animals reshape the landscape (e.g., bacteria, fungi, worms, rodents, and other organisms add organic matter to the soil, increasing soil fertility, encouraging plant growth, and strengthening resistance to erosion).

Sixth Grade

2. knows ways that plants and animals reconstitute the soil and alter the landscape.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Environmental Detectives, River Cutters

3. understands the processes that prevent or cause erosion.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Environmental Detectives, River Cutters, Stories in Stone

Seventh Grade

1. knows the ways in which living things reshape the landscape (for example, bacteria, fungi, worms, rodents, and other organisms add organic matter to the soil, increasing soil fertility, encouraging plant growth, and strengthening resistance to erosion).

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Environmental Detectives

Eighth Grade

1. extends and refines knowledge of ways in which living things reshape the landscape.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Environmental Detectives

Benchmark SC.D.1.3.5: The student understands concepts of time and size relating to the interaction of Earth’s processes (e.g., lightning striking in a split second as opposed to the shifting of the Earth’s plates altering the landscape, distance between atoms measured in Angstrom units as opposed to distance between stars measured in light-years).

Sixth Grade

1. understands the range of time over which natural events occur (for example, lightning in seconds, mountains form over many years).

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Environmental Detectives, Global Warming, River Cutters, Stories in Stone, Plate Tectonics

Seventh Grade

1. uses a geologic timeline to illustrate the occurrence of processes on Earth.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Global Warming, River Cutters, Plate Tectonics

Eighth Grade

1. understands concepts of time and size relating to the interaction of Earth’s processes (for example, the distance between atoms measured in Angstrom units as opposed to distance between stars measured in light-years).

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Global Warming, River Cutters, Plate Tectonics

Benchmark SC.D.2.3.1: The student understands that quality of life is relevant to personal experience.

Sixth Grade

1. knows that a change in the environment affects the quality of life in different ways for different organisms.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Acid Rain, Aquatic Habitats, Environmental Detectives, Global Warming, Ocean Currents, Only One Ocean

Seventh Grade

1. knows ways to conserve and recycle resources (for example, develops and uses a personal action plan to use recyclable materials whenever possible).

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Acid Rain, Environmental Detectives, Global Warming, Ocean Currents, Only One Ocean

Eighth Grade

1. understands that quality of life is relevant to personal experience.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Acid Rain, Environmental Detectives, Global Warming, Ocean Currents, Only One Ocean

Benchmark SC.D.2.3.2: The student knows the positive and negative consequences of human action on the Earth’s systems.

Sixth Grade

1. knows positive and negative consequences of human action on the Earth’s systems (for example, farming, transportation, mining, manufacturing).

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Acid Rain, Environmental Detectives, Global Warming, Ocean Currents, Only One Ocean, River Cutters

Seventh Grade

1. knows roles of various public and private environmental agencies (for example, Florida Water Management Districts, Environmental Protection Agency).

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Acid Rain, Environmental Detectives, Global Warming, Only One Ocean, River Cutters

Eighth Grade

1. knows that legislation can be adopted to protect the Earth from detrimental human activities.

Appropriate GEMS Teacher Guides: Environmental Detectives, Global Warming, Only One Ocean

Lawrence Hall of Science    © 2015 UC Regents. All rights reserved.    Contact GEMS    Updated February 06, 2021