Earth Science: More Topo Maps

Students finished their assignment for reading a St. Paul topographic map. I touched on the idea of contour lines as lines that show equal gravitational potential energy, but a lot of students had trouble wrapping their heads around that idea. I didn’t do much connecting ideas back to energy this tri, so I think they just were out of the habit of thinking about energy. I’d love to re-work the 9th grade science curriculum to use energy as a foundation for the whole course, but with some changes in my department’s staffing, I probably won’t be teaching 9th grade for a while. Maybe I can talk some of the 9th grade teachers into running with the idea, especially if Minnesota adopts the NGSS.