Earth Spheres
Trees, animals, and bacteria belong to this Earth sphere.
What is the biosphere? It includes all living things.
This star supplies the heat that helps drive Earth's water cycle.
What is the Sun?
These landforms rise high above nearby land and often have peaks.
What are mountains?
This large natural stream flows across land toward another river, a lake, or an ocean.
What is a river?
A puddle shrinks as liquid water changes into water vapor. Name this process.
What is evaporation?
Rocks, soil, landforms, and Earth's solid interior belong to this sphere.
What is the geosphere?
Anything that has mass and takes up space is called this. Water is one example.
What is matter?
This wide, low, mostly flat area of land is located next to an ocean.
What is a coastal plain?
This kind of map uses contour lines to show the shape and elevation of the land.
What is a topographic map?
Water vapor cools and becomes tiny liquid droplets in a cloud. Name this process.
What is condensation?
Name the sphere that includes oceans, ice, and groundwater AND the sphere made of gases surrounding Earth.
What are the hydrosphere (water) and atmosphere (gases)?
Ocean water evaporates and enters the air. Was the water matter destroyed? Explain.
No. The water changed from liquid to water vapor and moved into the atmosphere. Matter was not destroyed.
Wind deposits sand in a mound or ridge, forming this landform.
What is a dune?
All points on one contour line have this measurement in common.
What is the same elevation, or height above sea level?
Name the process when rain or snow falls from clouds AND the movement when water flows over land into a stream.
What are precipitation (falling from clouds) and runoff (flowing over land)?
A tree root grows into a crack and breaks a rock. Name BOTH spheres and explain the interaction.
What are the biosphere and geosphere? The living root breaks apart rock.
Explain how heat from inside Earth helps power geologic activity.
Earth's internal heat drives very slow movement of mantle material, helping power geologic activity.
A river slows down as it enters an ocean and deposits sediment at its mouth. This landform can build up there.
What is a delta?
Neighboring contour lines are labeled 80 m, 100 m, and 120 m. Find the contour interval and explain.
What is 20 meters? Subtract neighboring elevations: 100 - 80 = 20 and 120 - 100 = 20.
Name the process when rainwater soaks into the ground AND the underground layer that stores and transmits usable groundwater.
What are infiltration and an aquifer? Infiltration lets water enter the ground; an aquifer stores and transmits groundwater.
Explain how an erupting volcano interacts with the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere.
The volcano is part of the geosphere. It releases ash and gases into the atmosphere, heats water or melts ice in the hydrosphere, and can damage plants and animal habitats in the biosphere.
Explain how heat energy drives the cycling of water matter from a lake into the air and back to Earth.
The Sun heats lake water, causing evaporation. Water vapor cools and condenses into droplets. Water returns as precipitation. Water matter changes state and moves through the system.
Explain how a dune and a delta form differently. Name what moves and deposits their material.
Wind moves and deposits sand to form a dune. River water carries sediment and deposits it as it slows at a lake or ocean, forming a delta.
A river carries sand downstream and deposits it at its mouth. Name the TWO spheres interacting and describe each one's role.
What are the hydrosphere and geosphere? River water is part of the hydrosphere; the sand is part of the geosphere. The water moves and deposits the sand.
Explain how precipitation becomes underground drinking water and how people collect it. Use precipitation, aquifer, and well.
Precipitation falls to Earth. Some water seeps into the ground through infiltration and moves through spaces and cracks in soil and rock. Groundwater is stored in an aquifer. People dig or drill a well and pump the water to the surface.