This unit was created by 6th-grade teachers at Lawrence Intermediate School (LIS) in 1998. It was designed to fill an unmet need for a hands-on, inquiry-based unit covering these very important and popular subjects. This unit is intended to meet New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standard 5.10: Understanding of the Structure, Dynamics, and Geophysical Systems of the Earth, particularly Standard 10: by the end of Grade 8, students . . . "investigate the composition, cycling, and distribution of the world's oceans and other naturally occurring sources of water."
It has been used in LIS since the 1998-99 school year.
In Spring 2000, a group of six LIS teachers who teach 6th-grade science worked with Dr. David Reibstein of Princeton University on adding enhancements to the unit, as part of the Princeton Materials Institute Science Curriculum Support Project. See the results
HERE.Last edited September 19, 2000