Earth Science Review & Helpful Guide for Alternative Energy Letter

Use this study guide, your science notes, TheDiscoveryDen.weebly.com, and quizlet to study for your test. If you return
this review tomorrow with a parent signature letting me know you actually studied, I will add 5 points to your test
grade. You took this test at the beginning of the year (SLO PreTest) to let me know what you were coming into fifth
grade knowing. It wasn’t for a grade since I hadn’t taught you any of this yet. Now you will take it again to see what you
have learned, and it will be for a grade. You want to try to do your very best. Earth science is the area that you had the
least prior knowledge and performed the lowest on at the beginning of the year, so I’m excited to see how much you
have learned and your progress.

1. Weathering, Erosion, Deposition-

a. Weathering- breaks things down; ex: water carving out a rock to form a canyon
b. Erosion- carries it away; ex: wind carrying sand through the air
c. Deposition- brings it on down; ex: a river carrying sediment and depositing at it at the mouth of the river
to form a delta
d. Weathering, erosion and deposition shape the earth’s surface, both on land, and under the ocean, on
the sea floor
e. The earth’s surface can change both slowly (glaciers, plate boundaries, rock layer formation) and quickly
(hurricanes, tornadoes, forest fires)
2. Landforms
a. How do these landforms form?
i. Canyon- water, river, floods carve out rock over millions of years (weathering)
ii. Delta- DEPOSITION! A river deposits sediments at mouth of river
iii. V-shape valley- river cuts into land over a long time
iv. U-shape valley- glacier cuts into land over a long time
v. Sand dunes- wind pushes and carries sand around (erosion) and deposits
3. Soil
a. Review ALL vocab; examples of some words to review:
i. Retain- to hold; Water capacity- ability to hold water; Percolate- to move through; Porosity-
quality of being porous or having lots of holes/pores ; Particle size- size of individual particles
b. Particle size affects how particles can settle and how much water that soil can retain; the smaller the
particle size, the smaller the pore space, the harder it is for water to percolate through it
c. Soil water capacity- a soil can retain the most water when it has smaller pores and smaller particle size
(like clay). To find the water capacity of a soil, pour water in soil, measure the amount collected. To find
how much was retained, take original amount of water and subtract amount collected to get amount
retained.
d. Soil horizon/soil layers- Humus, Loam, Sand and Clay, Bedrock
e. Organic matter- stuff from living things ( or things that used to be living); if soil is really dark brown or
you visibly sea things like twigs, leaves, insect legs, poop, then it has organic matter in it; that organic
matter is good food for plants
4. Rock Cycle
a. Sedimentary rock- KNOW THIS ROCK WELL! Remember song: “Compactation, cementation,
sedimentary!” rock gets weathered, eroded, and deposited; then after thousands, even millions of years
of deposition, layer upon layer of rock sediments are piled on top of each other; those sediments start to
get compacted together due to the weight on top of the sediment. Then after awhile, minerals start
cystalize and cement those sediments together (remember that compactation means to smoosh or
squeeze together, get closer together; cementation means to glue, attach, or stick together)
i. We find any and all fossils ONLY in sedimentary rock (other forms of rock crush or melt or ruin
the fossils)
ii. Sedimentary rock is sediments glued together
iii. Most rock you will find is going to be sedimentary rock
iv. Oldest rock layer is at the bottom; youngest rock layer is at the top
 b. Metamorphic- Remember our chant: “Metamorphic heat and preassure!” At convergent plate
boundaries (where plates are moving towards each other), if mountains start to form, the pressure from
those plates causes the rock to start to heat up. That heat transforms the molecular structure and
mineral composition of the rock, morphing or changing the rock into a different rock.
c. Igneous- Remember our chant: “Igneous cooled magma!”
i. When magma or lava cools it hardens into a rock we call igneous rock
ii. lava (hot molten rock that’s so hot that it’s liquid and its ABOVE ground)
iii. magma (hot molten rock that’s so hot that it’s liquid and is BELOW ground)
d. Rocks can change and do change over time; review in your notes how rocks can change from one type to
another; if you know what each rock type is, you can also figure out what needs to happen to make it
into that rock type
5. Rock Layers
a. OLDEST ROCK FOUND AT THE BOTTOM LAYERS
b. YOUGNEST ROCK FOUND AT THE TOP LAYERS
c. You can determine the relative age of a rock by looking at what layer it is in
6. Fossils
a. Fossils tell us about the earth’s past- what lived there; what the earth used to look like in that location;
what organisms co-existed at the same time; predators and prey in an area at a time; what types of
animals and plants lived there; how the earth has changed over time; if there used to be an ocean there
and now it’s a forest
b. If you find a shell fossil, that suggests there was an ocean on the land at that time period
c. If you find a fossil or an impression of a leaf in a layer, you know there once was a forest there
d. What does the skin or body composition of an animal fossil tell us?
i. Reptile skin (scales/dry skin) – dry environment, maybe desert or just dry
ii. Thick Mammal fur –colder environment to stay warm
iii. Fish Scales – environment is water based (ocean/lake/stream/river)
iv. Fins and long tails- animal that probably swims so environment is ocean/lake/stream/river
7. Fossil Fuels
a. 3 types of fossil fuels KNOW THESE: 1) Coal 2) Oil 3) Natural Gas
b. Coal- (solid state of matter); made from swamp plants millions of years ago; Swamp plants die.
Sediments pile on top of swamp plant remains. Sediments compact plant remains. Pressure of
compactation, cementation creates heat. That heats up the plants, makes them black and crispy. If the
black crispy remains of swamp plants turn into peat, they can then turn into coal. Because plants take in
CO2, plants have carbon in them. Because coal is made of dead swamp plants, coal has carbon in it.
When we burn coal, we release CO2 into the atmosphere.
c. Oil- (liquid state of matter) Also known as as petroleum, gasoline, petrol (some call it gas- but know that
it isn’t in a gas state of matter- it is a liquid state of matter). How is oil (petroleum) formed? Tiny ocean
organisms died millions of years ago. Their bodies fall to the ocean floor and decompose, leaving carbon
(animals eat plants which have carbon in them so animals have carbon in them too). The animal remains
get buried by sediemnts that are deposited on top of them. There is so much pressure from the
compactation of the layers above that there’s heat. The carbon get’s hot and melts. That mixes with
water to form petroleum (oil).
d. Natural gas (gas state of matter) If oil gets hot enough, it can evaporate into natural gas. It isn’t just any
kind of gas. Other gases can be renewable by natural gas is nonrenewable and highly flammable.
e. REMEMBER: COAL, OIL, NATURAL GAS- are the three types of fossil fuels
8. Natural Resources- things formed by nature that we use
a. Renewable- can quickly replenish/reproduce/replace/make new (takes a few years, or up to 100 years,
but does NOT take millions of years to replenish)
i. Examples: resources from ANY animal or plant (renewable) ; ALSO sun, wind, water, geothermal
(special kinds of renewable resources, known as inexhaustible)
b. Nonrenewable- takes MILLIONS of years to make new or can’t be made new again
i. FOSSIL FUELS – coal, oil (petroleum), natural gas
 ii. Metals – things made of gold, aluminum, silver, iron
iii. Things we make using fossil fuels or metals: things made of plastic
9. Alternative Energy Sources- alternatives to burning fossil fuels
a. We currently rely on fossil fuels to generate electricity and act as fuel for our modes of transportation.
When we burn fossil fuels, the heat can boil water which creates steam, which turns a turbine. The
turbine is connected to a magnet. There is wire coiled around the magnet. To generate electricity, you
need to get electrons to flow in the same direction. Because electrons are aligned in a magnet, when the
turbine spins, that spins the magnet, which causes the electrons in the coiled wire to flow in the same
direction, thus generating electricity. If fossil fuels take millions of years to form, and we are using them
faster than they can be replenished, thus running out of this source, AND burning fossil fuels releases
Carbon Dioxide into the air and we are releasing so much that it is trapping lots of heat in our
atmosphere and negatively affecting our earth, we should use OTHER resources that we aren’t running
out of and don’t release CO2 in the atmosphere but can still turn a turbine to generate electicity or use
as fuel.
b. Resources we use that are alternatives to burning fossil fuels are called Alternative Energy Sources.
i. Wind Energy (renewable & inexhaustible) – energy from the wind to turn a turbine connected to
a generator (magnet with coiled wire) and generate electricity
ii. Hydroelectric Energy (renewable & inexhaustible)- energy from moving water (above ground) to
turn a turbine connected to a generator to generate electricity
iii. Geothermal Energy (renewable & inexhaustible) – heat or hot water from BELOW the earth’s
surface we use to turn a turbine connected to a generator to generate electricity
iv. Solar Energy (renewable & inexhaustible) – energy from the sun (doesn’t use a generator);
(remember, we receive LIGHT energy, THERMAL energy (heat), and SOLAR energy from the sun)
How does it work? photons bump off electrons in one layer and get drawn to another layer-
electrons moving in the same direction = electricity. Advanced explanation: (don’t have to know)
a solar panel is made of silicon which can absorb light energy. When the photon enters the
silicon, there are two layers of material (phosphorous is more negatively charged and boron is
more positively charged) The photon can bump electrons of atoms in the phosphorous layer and
then the more positively charge layer lures the electrons over (because opposites attract).
v. Biofuels (renewable) – fuel we make from plants and animals; we grind up organic matter,
separate the sugars, distill into ethanol, and use in our cars. This is an alternative fuel to using oil.
It still releases CO2 in the atmosphere.
vi. Nuclear (non-renewable) - energy released from the splitting of atoms; the heat from this
reaction can heat up water, boil it, release steam, which can turn a turbine connected to a
generator to generate electricity (uses uranium, which is non-renewable, so it is an alternative
energy source to using fossil fuels, but it is NOT renewable or inexhaustible.)