Physical Geology:

Test Structure:
Minnesota teacher licensure standards require all elementary teachers to know and apply the fundamental concepts and principles of earth and space science.   Quizzes are in two parts, the first part to measure knowledge, the second to practice and test your application of that knowledge.  In general, the application questions are harder than the knowledge ones.  Knowledge questions will comprise about 60% of each quiz, application questions about 40%.

K-6 Content Knowledge Standards Covered:

Standard:  Understand changes in Earth and sky
    1)  Understand how energy effects changes in the Earth, where it comes from, how it moves and interacts with the Earth.

    2)  Understand how composition of Earth materials change, and the processes that cause those changes.

Standard:  Know the structure of the Earth system
    1)  Know the structure of the Earth's interior, the layers within the Earth, and where lava comes from.

    2)  Understand how we determine the character of Earth's interior.

Standard:  understand properties of Earth materials
    1)  Understand how physical properties, such as density, influence the behavior and differentiation of materials.

    2)  Understand how chemical properties, such as solubility and partitioning, influence the behavior and differentiation of materials.  Examples include understanding how gases dissolving or undissolving from magma affect volcanism, or how the partitioning of a pollutant between water and sediment influences the destiny of the pollutant.
 

Example Test Questions for Knowledge Part

1)  Draw a picture of the Earth in cross-sectional view illustrating the interior structure of the Earth.

2)  Consider the situation in which radioactive elements are concentrated in a particular location at the bottom of Earth's mantle.  This results in a "hot spot", a region that has a higher temperature than surrounding areas.  The mantle material in this region rises, being less dense than the material around it, reaching the crust, where it may cause partial melting.  This is an example of energy moving by
a)  radiation
b)  conduction
c)  convection
d)  friction

3)  Consider a batch of rock that partly melts such that you have rock and magma together.  In general
a)  rock and magma must have the same chemical composition
b)  rock and magma will not have the same chemical composition
c)  since rock is made of one element and magma another, they must be different.

Example Test Questions for Application Part

1)  Write a sentence describing the most important point answering the question.  Do not write more than 1 sentence or 2 handwritten lines.
     What can experiments tell us about the grain size of igneous rocks?

2)  After setting off a stick of dynamite, you measure the time it takes the shock wave to return to the blast site after reflecting off a distinct compositional boundary at the base of the crust (called the Mohorovicic discontinuity).  The time is about 10.8 seconds before the first shock wave (called the Primary wave) returns.  You also do experiments with crustal rock and determine that primary seismic waves (P-waves) have a velocity in crustal rock of about 6.5 km/sec.  How thick is the crust in your location?
a)  35 km  b) 70 km  c)  18 km  d)  1.2 km  e) 0.8 km

3)  Draw a sketch, labeling different components, which clearly illustrates the operation of a process of chemical differentiation on Earth.
 

Answers to Application Questions:
 1)
wrong or weak answers:
Grain size tells us about how an igneous rock forms.
         (simply restates a part of the question)
Experiments tell us that igneous rocks have coarse or fine grained crystals.
         (we can look at an igneous rock itself to see the size of its crystals, we don't need experiments)
Grain size tells us about the rate the rock cooled.
         (too vague about the effect of cooling rate and doesn't address what experiments tell us)

Strong answer:
Experiments allow us to determine the effect of cooling rate on grain size and to realize that coarse-grained igneous rocks cooled more slowly than fine-grained ones.
 

2)
The round-trip distance is twice the distance to the bottom of the crust.  The round-trip travel time
is twice the one-way travel time, which would be 5.4 seconds.  Every second the wave travels 6.5km.  Thus 5.4 times 6.5 (distance it travels in 5.4 seconds) = 35 km.

3)
 weak answer:  This example addresses the differentiation of salt from water.  Although the process illustrated is an important differentiation process on earth, the key components of the process are not illustrated in the diagram.

Weak because
there is no indication of the process involved (evaporation followed by condensation)
there is no indication of the partitioning (salt partitions into the liquid more than the water vapor)
there is no indication of the conditions that change to cause the differentiation (T increase then decrease)

Strong answer:   This example illustrates the formation of copper ore by crystallization of copper-rich minerals from water in a vein within rock.  It indicates the process involved (crystallization from water), the relevant partition coefficient, and examples of conditions that might change to cause this process to occur.  Take special note that one need not have memorized this relationship for the crystallization of copper from water (which you may not have encountered before), but rather every process of differentiation shares these components.

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