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Module F – Lessons 11 to 20

Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
   

Geology: The Changing Earth
   

Lesson 11 – Part One

    
NEW WORDS: Andreas, Antarctica’s, Francesco, HMS, Heng, Inge, Kua, Kua’s, Lehmann, Mercalli, Petrarch, Richter, Wegener, Wegener’s, Zhang, abutting, adjoining, aftershocks, alterations, amended, appreciably, basalt, bolstered, broadly, catastrophes, certify, challenger, climes, coagulate, competence, concatenations, continent’s, contours, convictions, convulsed, corrugations, coursed, credence, criticized, crumples, cynognathus, demurred, devastation, disparaged, documented, durations, enigma, eructed, estimation, exerts, exhilarating, farfetched, faults, filed, foolproof, formulated, founts, glossopteris, haggard, heaves, heretofore, incontestable, interacting, interplay, interpretations, landmasses, lurches, lystrosaurus, magnitude, mainspring, marginally, matching, meticulous, nonsensical, oceanic, overlying, palpable, pangaia, pitiless, plunking, professed, progressively, quakes, rearranged, repudiated, restlessly, sampled, scale’s, seafloor, seismic, seismogram, seismograms, seismograph, seismographs, seismologists, seismometer, seismometers, severed, severity, shuddered, sideswiping, slabs, soundings, spate, stupendously, subducting, subduction, subsoil, tectonic, tectonics, theorized, thickest, topples, trenches, triggered, verifying, weighted, zigzags
   
   

Chapter One: Earth’s Changing Surface
   
The Big Question: How did our view of what went on with Earth’s surface change over time?
   
What if you had lived in Europe? And it was in the Middle Ages? You were told that the Earth can change. That would have seemed nuts. At that time, folks thought that mountains, valleys, and landscape features had always been there. True, rare catastrophes might take place. Earthquakes convulsed the ground. They triggered landslides. Volcanoes eructed. This would send up founts of lava. That’s red-hot melted rock. But folks viewed these things as punishments from God. They did not see them as change with the Earth.
   
Do you recall the 1400s, 1500s, and 1600s? Europeans set sail on trips to explore the world. They found new continents. They found new isles. Mapmakers drew the first broadly correct maps of the whole world. Folks would look at these maps. They would see things that surprised them. Some continents looked as if they might fit with each other. They were like a jigsaw puzzle. Take a look at a world map or globe. Check out the eastern edge of South America. It looks like it could fit into the western edge of Africa! What if you could push these two continents to be side-by-side? Their contours would match up. Folks wondered if these continents were once adjoining. Then later, they must have moved apart. At first, this seemed like a nonsensical thought. How could continents move on a globe that did not change?

Powerful Forces and Gradual Change
   
Now let’s turn to the 1700s and 1800s. Lots of folks now had competence with science-based observation. They now thought it to be incontestable that Earth’s surface features DO change. They looked at great masses of rock. They seemed to have been raised up over time. Cliffs and mountains were formed that way. They now professed that once-tall mountains had been worn down. That was due to wind, rain, and ice. They said that over 1000s of years, valleys had been carved by rivers that had flowed through them. These scientists found facts of all kinds. Things seemed to show that sea levels had been higher — and lower — at varied times in the past. They looked at layers of rock on mountain PEAKS. There were fossils there! They must have been under water at some point. And we observed how big rocks could break down into small chunks. These were called “sediments.” They saw how new rocks formed. They learned this as they saw volcanic lava cool and coagulate.
   
We grew to think that forces of great power were at work. They would change Earth’s surface. And they were thought to take place quite slowly. This went on over long durations of time. Slow, gradual alterations added up to produce huge change. We were convinced that Earth’s rocky surface had changed progressively throughout the planet’s long life. It had changed in the past. And Earth was changing in the here and now, too.
   
These learnings laid the groundwork for a modern science. It’s called “geology.” This is the study of the makeup of the Earth. It looks at the forces and processes that shape and change the Earth. Rocks are key factors in this field. Rocks hold clues to how Earth’s surface has changed over time. Side-by-side with fossils, rocks give us info about the Earth’s past.
   
   
Shen Kua’s Findings
   
Shen Kua was a Chinese scientist. He was a mathematician, too. He lived from 1031 –1095 CE. He looked at rocks and fossils. He did lots of studies of Earth’s surface. He knew that Earth’s surface is shaped slowly by huge forces. Some of these wear rocks down. Some make new rocks. And they can be pushed up to be mountains. Shen Kua had these thoughts 100s of years before those in Europe did.

Search for Clues
   
So, what about the jigsaw-puzzle fit of the continents? Let’s turn to the 1800s and 1900s. Geologists looked at rock layers on the continents. They had lots of exhilarating finds. Here’s a good one. Rock layers on the northern and eastern coasts of South America match rock layers on Africa’s western coast. Also, they found deposits of coal and salt in eastern North America. They’re just like those in southern Europe.
   
We’ve found fossils of an ancient fern called “Glossopteris.” They show up in like rock layers in Africa, India, Australia, and South America. We’ve found fossils of an ancient reptile, “Lystrosaurus.” They show up in both southern Africa and India. And in South America and Africa, there are fossils of a reptile, “Cynognathus.” They turned up right across the Atlantic from each other.
   
These finds seemed to certify a key fact. That is that the continents had once been joined. But how? And by the way, how had they split apart? Lots of scientists proposed their interpretations. But lots of them were quite farfetched. One talked of a huge eruption. It came from the center of the Earth. It said that it had ripped all of the land apart. One said that part of Earth’s land broke away. That became the moon. What was left were the continents. Few folks gave much credence to these thoughts. A better explanation was needed. And it had to have facts to support it. In the early 1900s, Alfred Wegener gave to us just that.

Enter Alfred Wegener
   
He was born and educated in Germany. Alfred was intrigued by lots of subjects about science. He looked at weather, astronomy, and cold, polar regions. Around 1910, he read a science paper. It was about like fossils and rock formations found on varied continents. He was caught up in this mystery of the “matching” continents. And he wished to solve this enigma.
   
Alfred looked for facts to back up his work. He pulled together finds made by lots of scientists. These were about rock formations, fossils, and mountains. Polar explorers had just unearthed fossils of Glossopteris. That was in Antarctica. Fossils like that had heretofore been found in other parts of the world. This seemed to clue him into something big. Ice-covered Antarctica might once have been joined to South America, Africa, India, and Australia! It meant that Antarctica had once had a warm climate. It would have been warm enough for ferns to grow!
    
From these facts, Alfred made a key statement. He said that all the present-day continents had long past been joined as one huge landmass. He knew, as with any new find, that his findings might be amended or demurred in the future by more facts. But he was firm in his thoughts. He felt that his evidence bolstered his convictions.
   
   
Continents that Drift
   
What if Wegener’s statements were right? Then how had the continents moved apart? A key clue came from the sea. The oceans were still largely unexplored in his day. But in the 1870s, scientists found that much of the ocean floor was made of basalt. That’s a heavy, dense rock. It’s formed when lava cools and hardens. Lava is “magma.” It has erupted up above Earth’s crust from deep underground. Most rocks that make up the continents are lighter and less dense than basalt.

Seafloor Discoveries
   
In 1872, there was a research ship called HMS Challenger. She had set out on a four-year mission. It was to gather info about the ocean floor. The ship went to each ocean except the Arctic Ocean. Lots of scientists were on board. They dredged up mud, rocks, and sea creatures from the seafloor. They also took soundings. These were measures of water depth. They’d lower weighted lines into the water. They measured out the line till the weight would land on the bottom. They used the soundings to make rough maps of the seafloor. They found that the seafloor has lots going on. There are vast plains, tall mountains, and deep valleys.
   
Think of the last time that you put ice in a glass of tea. The ice would float, right? Ice floats because it is less dense than water. Alfred thought about the fact that the rocks that make up continents are less dense than rocks on the seafloor. “What if continents were like huge chunks of ice?” he asked. “Could they float over the denser rocks of the ocean floor? And could they move around?”
   
In 1915, Wegener wrote a book. It was called “The Origins of Continents and Oceans.” In it, he gave us his hypothesis for how the Earth’s continents had moved over time. He called this “continental drift.”
   
He said that millions of years past, Earth had one huge landmass. He called it a “supercontinent.” He named it “Pangaea.” That’s from the Greek word “pangaia.” It means “all the Earth.” At some point, Pangaea broke up. Then the pieces – the continents – slowly drifted away from each other. As they moved, mountain ranges pulled apart. Rock formations were severed. New oceans filled in the widening gaps between the landmasses. Groups of plants and animals that had once lived together were separated. As continents drifted, their climes changed. Antarctica’s climate grew to be frigid. Thus, the continent’s plants and animals died. Only their fossils remained. They were buried under snow and ice.

The Missing Puzzle Piece
   
Wegener’s continental drift theory explained the fit of the continents. It showed how matching rocks, fossils, and land features ended up in varied places. It showed how the climate had changed on some continents, too. Yet other scientists criticized his thoughts. They repudiated his theories. Why? It did not show how drifting continents could move. He had not shown a natural process with enough power to slowly move huge chunks of land on Earth’s surface. There was a good reason that he had not found it, though. It was hidden beneath Earth’s rocky crust.

Chapter Two: Earth’s Layers And Plates That Move
   
The Big Question: What’s the interplay between tectonic plates and Earth’s layers? And how do they change the surface of the Earth?
   
Alfred’s drift theory was not yet foolproof. But it did explain lots of the “why” questions. It showed how the edges of some continents fit with each other like in puzzles. It showed that continents across vast seas have like types of rock forms and fossils. What the theory could not yet show was “how.” How could a mass of rock as large as Asia move 1,000s of miles across Earth’s surface? It would take a stupendously large force to do that. The field of geology in that day did not yet know of such a force.
   
Due to this, most geologists fought the concept of continental drift. This went on for decades. This theory was harshly disparaged. Still, a few folks thought that it was on the right track. What if the force behind this drift was below Earth’s surface? How can you find what lies beneath Earth’s crust? It was odd, but earthquakes helped to solve these questions.

What Waves Show
   
Have you ever tossed a small rock into a pond? Small waves head out from the spot where the rock hits the water’s surface. You can’t see them. But waves head through the water below the surface, too. An earthquake is a bit like that. It’s like a rock plunking into water. In a quake, the ground shakes. This is caused by waves of energy. They head out from the quake’s source through the Earth. These are called “seismic waves.” Strong waves like this can go long ways. They can move through Earth’s crust. They can move deep into its interior.
   
Something else went on at the time that Alfred thought about drift. Some folks were studying Earth’s “insides.” They used seismic waves to do this. How? They used tools called “seismographs.” These documented the waves that moved through the planet. These waves move in varied ways as they move through varied materials. They move faster through solids than liquids. The study of these waves helped us to know about Earth’s four main layers.
   
Earth’s deepest layer is a solid. It’s an “inner core” of hot metal. It may be as hot as the sun’s surface! The next layer is the “outer core.” It, too, is made of hot metal. But it’s liquid, not solid. Next is the “mantle.” It surrounds the outer core. It’s Earth’s largest and thickest layer. It’s made of hot, dense rock. The rock is solid in the lower and upper parts of the mantle. In between, though, is a region where the rock is not liquid or solid. We learned of the slow movement and behavior of this material. It’s caused by heat and pressure. And it has an impact on Earth’s surface.
   
Then there’s the fourth layer. It’s on top of the mantle. It’s Earth’s outermost layer. We call it the thin, rocky “crust.” There are two types of crust. One’s the “oceanic crust.” One’s the “continental crust.” Oceanic crust is covered by ocean water. Most of the continental crust is dry land. But some of the crust near the edges is covered by water. Oceanic crust is thinner. But it’s heavier than continental crust.
   
Continental crust has a solid rock mass called “bedrock.” This is the outside layer on the crust. It’s covered with subsoil and topsoil lots of the time. Topsoil is good for plant life.
   
For those with interest in continental drift, it was the slow-moving material in the middle of the mantle that caught their eye. Did material movement in the mantle impact crust movement, too? Could this be part of the reason why continents drift? Some folks thought so. Before they could be sure, though, they’d need facts to show that Earth’s crust was really on the move.

Clues from the Seafloor
   
Let’s head to the 1940s and 1950s. New technology let us make meticulous maps of the seafloor. The maps showed long concatenations of underwater mountains. These are called mid-ocean ridges. They’re in all of Earth’s oceans. There was a split, or rift, that ran down the center of these corrugations. The rift was like a seam in a pants leg. (That’s where two bits of fabric come together.)
   
We dredged up rock samples from mid-ocean ridges. All the rocks were basalt. Mid-ocean ridges seemed to be like long, skinny strings of volcanoes. They all ran along the seafloor.
   
We sampled rocks at varied distances from the rift along a mid-ocean ridge. It was found that rocks from the edge of the rift had formed quite recently. Rocks farther away from the rift were older. The farther that scientists got from the rift, on both sides, the older the rocks were.
   
It was concluded that mid-ocean ridges form along huge cracks in Earth’s crust. There’s magma beneath the crust. It erupts through these cracks as lava. The lava cools into basalt. It creates new oceanic crust on both sides of the rift.
   
New crust is added. Then the older crust gets pushed outward, away from the rift. Inch by inch, year after year, oceanic crust spreads out into ocean basins on both sides of mid-ocean ridges. This process is called “seafloor spreading.” It was theorized that as the seafloor slowly spreads, continents that border the ocean slowly move apart. Here was one way to show how continents could drift!
   
Now, we knew that the Earth was not getting bigger. If new crust forms on mid-ocean ridges, then old crust must be destroyed somewhere else. We formulated that deep ocean trenches are places where crust sinks down into the mantle. In the 1960s, a new theory was formed about how Earth’s surface changes. It was called “plate tectonics.”

Moving Plates
   
We’re still learning about plate tectonics. The theory states that Earth’s crust, along with the solid top of the mantle, is broken up into sections. These huge, rocky slabs are called “tectonic plates.” These plates fit tightly with each other. They are not fixed in place, though. They can move. They move due to heat and pressure in the mantle. The material in the mantle slowly moves. And it exerts huge pressure on the overlying plates. All of that pressure forces the plates to move, as well. This goes on quite slowly.
   
Earth’s plates have been slowly moving and interacting. This has gone on for billions of years. They interact mostly along their edges, or boundaries. Plate boundaries are where two or more of the plates meet.

A Matter of Time
   
At some edges, plates are moving apart. What occurs as the plates move apart? Molten rock flows up from the mantle into the space between them. This creates new crust. Mid-ocean ridges are an example of this type of plate movement. Plates along the mid-ocean ridge in the Atlantic Ocean move apart at a rate of about 0.8 to 2 inches per year. That may not seem like much. But it adds up.
   
Let’s head to two hundred million years past. The landmasses of North America and Europe were joined. So were South America and Africa. Thanks to plates that moved, these continents now lie on opposite sides of a vast ocean. This is the first type of plate movement. Plates moved apart.
   
At other plate edges, plates are colliding. That means that they’re crashing into each other. When they do this, the crust at their edges crumples. And that crust is pushed higher up. This type of movement creates mountains. In other places, one of the crashing plates slides under the other. Two plates move this way on the west coast of South America. There’s a heavier oceanic plate. It’s sliding under a lighter continental plate. This process is called “subduction.” This type of movement has given us a deep ocean trench. It’s off the coast of Chile and Peru. It has also had a role in creating the towering Andes Mountains. They are on the west edge of South America. Plate movements like these have formed mountains through Earth’s long history.
   
There’s one more type of process. Tectonic plates can slide side-to-side past each other. It’s not a smooth process. Plate edges press together hard. They get stuck lots of the time. Then the pressure keeps building. At some point, the pressure gets too great. The stuck edges break free. This makes the plates jerk past each other.
   
   
Providing the Answers
   
The theory of plate tectonics answered lots of questions in geology. It showed how Pangaea broke up. It showed how the continents have been slowly rearranged over millions of years. The movement of the plates also has shed light on mid-ocean ridges, deep ocean trenches, patterns in the locations of mountains, and lots of other features on Earth’s surface. The theory is now the mainspring of modern geology.
   
As plates move, odd things can happen. Most of the time, they happen quite slowly. Sometimes, though, the effects of plate movements are sudden and dramatic. Think earthquakes and volcanoes!

Core Conclusions
   
You may not have heard of this Danish scientist. Her name is Inge Lehmann. Among seismologists, though, she’s famous. Around 1900, we thought that the Earth had just three layers. We talked of an outer crust, a solid mantle, and a liquid core. She studied seismograph records of earthquakes. She looked at how seismic waves changed as they moved through Earth’s interior. She had 1000s of records. They were filed in boxes. Of course, there were no computers back then! She saw patterns. She saw how seismic waves behaved as they coursed through Earth. She saw that Earth’s core has two parts. There’s a liquid outer core. There’s a solid inner core. In 1936, she told us of her findings. This changed our view of Earth!

Chapter Three: Earth’s Shakes and Quakes
   
The Big Question: What goes on beneath Earth’s surface to cause earthquakes?
   
There was an Italian writer. He was named Francesco Petrarch. He penned an intense account in the Middle Ages. Can you guess what that was? “The floor shuddered under my feet. The books crashed into each other. Then they fell down. I was scared. I hurried to leave the room. Outside, I saw the servants and lots of folks running restlessly to and fro. All faces were haggard.”
   
If you said that he wrote of an earthquake, you’re right! The folks in that part of Italy had good reason to be pale and scared on that winter’s day in 1348 CE. On that day, a large quake struck. Thousands of people lost their lives.
   
Earthquakes are pitiless natural disasters. They strike with no warning. Out of nowhere, the ground starts to shake. Furniture topples. Objects tumble from shelves. And buildings might collapse. In 1348 CE, folks had no clue what caused quakes. Now we know what quakes are. They’re the result of strong forces at work in Earth’s crust and mantle.
   
Recall the theory of plate tectonics. That came to pass in the 1960s. It tells of how Earth’s surface and interior change over long ranges of time. Some plates are pulled apart at their edges. Other plates are colliding. And still others are sideswiping each other. A lot goes on at plate edges. And that goes on with most earthquakes. In fact, one of the best ways to find plate edges is to check where quakes are found!

Forces and Faults
   
Try a small test. Place your arms out in front of you. Make them parallel to the floor. Then put your hands together. Keep your palms and fingers flat next to each other. Now start to press your hands together. Slowly build the pressure. Do this till you can’t press any harder. Then let your right hand quickly slide forward. That quick slipping is what goes on at a fault. A fault is a “fracture.” That’s a crack in Earth’s crust. Most faults are along the edges of tectonic plates. As plates move, huge rough blocks of rock on both sides of a fault get stuck next to each other. But more goes on beneath the plates at the same time. Material in the mantle keeps moving. This exerts more and more pressure on the plates. That pushes them to keep moving.
   
Pressure builds on the stuck edges of the fault. Think of your hands as these edges. They’ll press harder and harder. The pressure builds. And then the stuck blocks of rock quickly break and slip past each other. As they do, a huge spate of energy is released. How much energy? Well, all of the energy that built up in the rocks in the time that they were stuck and could not move.
   
The Pacific Plate is Earth’s largest tectonic plate. It lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. Think about how much energy it takes to move that huge rocky plate. And you have to count all of the water on top of it, too! Then think about all that energy being released at a fault in just a moment. Such a huge burst of energy moves out from the fault. It goes in all directions as seismic waves. These waves make the ground heave and shake. This massive shaking is what we call an earthquake.

San Andreas Fault
   
In the U.S., one of the most famed faults is the San Andreas Fault. It’s in California. It lies on the edge between two tectonic plates. They are slowly moving past each other. The movement, though, is far from steady. For years at a time, blocks of rock abutting this fault stay stuck. Pressure builds and builds. Then, WHAM! They slip and trigger a quake. The 1906 San Francisco quake was one of the worst ever in the U.S. The sudden slip that triggered it was huge. It caused rocks on both sides of the fault to move more than 20 feet. And that was in just seconds!
   
   
Shake, Heave, Sway, and Lurch
   
All quakes start with huge blocks of rock that move along faults. The place in Earth’s crust where this goes on is a quake’s “focus.” Think of it as the quake’s heart. It’s the source of seismic waves. The focus may be deep in the crust. Or it may be close to the surface.
   
The “epicenter” is the point on Earth’s surface right above a quake’s focus. Some kinds of seismic waves made by quakes go deep into Earth’s interior. Surface waves, though, are waves that are first palpable at the epicenter. In a quake, surface waves are what make the ground move. It shakes, heaves, sways, and lurches. That’s the cause of most earthquake devastation.
   
In Chapter 2, you read about seismographs. These are used to note the shaking of Earth’s surface caused by seismic waves. The time it takes for these waves to reach a seismograph is key in verifying where the quake went on. The longer that the waves take to reach the device, the farther the quake is from the seismograph.

Seismographs: Now and Then
   
A modern seismograph is also called a “seismometer.” It records the shakes on Earth’s surface that are caused by seismic waves. A “seismogram” is the record that this device makes. It shows these waves as jagged up-and-down lines. We look at multiple seismograms so that we can pinpoint a quake’s epicenter.
   
Zhang Heng was a Chinese scientist. He invented the first known seismograph. This was around 132 CE. It did not look like our modern device. It was shaped like a large vase. The vase had eight dragons around the outside. Each one looked downward and held a ball loosely in its mouth. Below the eight dragons were open-mouthed frogs. When a quake struck, the balls fell into the frogs’ mouths below. Based on which balls fell, one could come up with an estimation of the distance from and direction to the quake’s source!

Measuring a Quake’s Strength
   
We also use seismographs to find out the strength of a quake. We might call that the “magnitude” of a quake. In a small quake, Earth’s surface may shake just a bit. The device shows these types of low-energy seismic waves as small wiggles. It’s not the same with a big quake. Earth’s surface shakes a lot more. The device shows these high-energy waves as big zigzags.
   
The Richter scale is another way that we find a quake’s strength. The Richter scale gives a number to a quake. That’s based on the largest seismic wave that’s noted for that quake. The higher the scale’s number, the stronger the quake. A magnitude 5.0 quake on the Richter scale causes 10 times as much ground shaking as a 4.0 quake. A 6.0 quake causes 10 times more shaking than a 5.0, and so on.
   
The Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale also uses numbers to find quake strengths. The numbers are based on two things. These are survivors’ descriptions and the severity of quake damage. The higher the number, the worse the quake. This scale is less scientific than the Richter scale. That’s because few people can talk of the events in the same way.
   
Pressure on fault lines can build up for years. It can even take centuries. But blocks of rock on a fault will move at some point. Then the quake happens very quickly. Most quakes last just a few seconds. Still, the trouble may not be over when the ground stops to shake. Large quakes are followed a lot of the time by “aftershocks.” These are like mini-quakes. Most of the time, they are smaller and weaker than the main quake event. They happen as blocks of rock on the newly slipped fault settle into place.

Reading The Scales
   
Modified Mercalli Scale:
   
I. Felt by almost no one.

II. Felt by few people.

III. Noticed by lots of folks, but they often do not know that it’s a quake.

IV. Felt indoors by lots of folks. Feels like a truck has struck the building.

V. Felt by nearly everyone. Lots of folks are awakened. Swaying trees and poles may be seen.

VI. Felt by all. Lots of folks run outdoors. Furniture moved. Slight damage occurs.

VII. Everyone runs outdoors. Poorly built structures are appreciably damaged. There is slight damage elsewhere.

VIII. Specially designed structures marginally damaged. Others collapse.

IX. All buildings considerably damaged. Lots of them shift off of foundations. Noticeable cracks in ground.

X. Lots of structures are destroyed. Ground is badly cracked.

XI. Almost all structures fall. Very wide cracks in ground.

XII. Total destruction. Waves seen on ground surfaces. Objects are tumbled and tossed.
   
    
Richter Scale:
   
2.5. Broadly not felt, but noted on seismometers.

3.5. Felt by lots of folks.

4.5. Some local damage may occur.

6.0. A destructive quake.

7.0. A major quake.

8.0 and up. Great big earthquakes.
   
   
Earthquakes at Sea
   
Recall that most quakes are at the edges of tectonic plates. A lot of plate edges are in the sea. Thus, lots of quakes go on in the oceanic crust that forms the seafloor. This is often the case around the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific has lots of deep ocean trenches along the edges of its ocean basin. Ocean trenches form where one plate is sliding, or subducting, beneath another plate. Quakes are common, too, in the continental crust along ocean trenches.
   
Quakes that occur in the crust that forms the ocean bottom can cause the seafloor to shift. This shift can cause seawater, from the ocean floor to its surface, to quickly start to move. The result is a huge wave called a “tsunami.” (You might hear this called a “tidal wave,” too.)
   
Tsunamis move fast. They can reach speeds of 500 miles per hour! Out in deep water in the middle of the sea, you’d hardly see this great pulse of water passing by. All that water piles up as the tsunami gets near a coastline. It becomes a towering wall of water. It may be as tall as a three or four-story building! The huge wave will crash on the shore with massive force. It surges far inland. Then it goes roaring and churning back out to sea. Tsunamis can cause extensive destruction.
   
Scientists can’t know when there will be quakes. But they can give some warning for tsunamis. This depends on its starting point. A tsunami may take many minutes to reach land. It might take hours. A few countries have set up tsunami warning systems in the Pacific and other oceans.

    
     
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
   

Geology: The Changing Earth
   

Lesson 12 – Part Two

    
NEW WORDS: Claud, Hawaiians, Hi’iaka, Hilo, Kaha’i, Kauai, Kauai’s, Keelikolani, Kilauea, Klamath, Loa, Loa’s, Loha, Lohi’au, Loihi, Maui, Mauna, Mazama, Mazama’s, Molokai, Monadalkni, Monadalkni’s, Nyanhongo, Nyanhongo’s, Oahu, Oregon’s, Pele’s, Sahale, Tambora, Tambora’s, Tyee, Yellowstone’s, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe’s, Zimbabwean, arrowhead, befuddling, binds, bolts, burnished, cajole, caldera, cascade, cataclysmic, cemented, cementing, chagrin, circinate, circulated, codify, collides, collision, commentary, compacting, compacts, compilation, composites, concretely, condign, consuming, crumbly, culture’s, descending, despicable, egressed, embodied, enchantments, eruptions, exfoliate, fireballs, fissure, fixtures, flaring, frosts, gneiss, grained, hotspot, hotspots, immutable, implode, intermittently, lovesome, maka, marrying, mudstone, multitudinous, mythic, na, oozes, outmaneuver, park’s, perpetual, predictably, raged, recreated, remnants, scalpels, sharper, streambed, supervolcano, surgeons, swirls, undersea, unfolding, unforeseeable, unleashes, vacillation, volcanically, volcano’s, waged, weathering, zones
   
   

Chapter Four: Earth’s Fiery Volcanoes
   
The Big Question: How do we look for where volcanoes might show up?
   
Did you know that you can see new land form right in front of your eyes? You can do just that on Hawaii. There, the Kilauea volcano has been erupting on and off since 1983. At times, red-hot lava shoots out of the crater at the volcano’s top. More times than that, lava oozes out of cracks on the mountain’s sides. It flows down the hill. Then it cools and hardens into rock. Lava can flow all the way to the sea. There, it cools to form rock on the shore. This adds new land to the isle. It makes it a bit bigger than it was before.
   
Erupting volcanoes are intense natural events. They can be a creative force. They can add new land – even whole islands – to the Earth. They bring minerals from deep inside the Earth to the surface, too. But they can be dangerous and cataclysmic. Large eruptions can flatten whole forests. They can fill the air with noxious gases and hot, choking ash. They can cause rivers of lava to flow. This will burn and bury everything in their path. Eruptions can also trigger other events. Think about earthquakes, tsunamis, and landslides. They can even change the weather all around the globe!
   
   
The Year With No Summer
   
Let’s turn to the spring of 1815. A huge volcano erupted in Indonesia. It was called Tambora. It was the largest volcano in history. Tambora’s eruption blasted huge clouds of ash. It went high into the atmosphere. In the next few months, winds circulated the ash around the globe. There were lots of fine ash particles in the air. This blocked some of the sunlight that should have reached Earth’s surface. Less sunlight meant less warmth. Due to Tambora, the weather was much colder than normal in 1816. There were hard frosts in New England all summer long. A foot of snow fell in eastern Canada in June. Weeks of cold rain killed most of the crops in Europe. Lots of folks called 1816 “the year with no summer.”

What is a Volcano?
   
A volcano is a hill or mountain. It forms over a crack in Earth’s crust. Lava comes out of that fissure. The crack leads down to a chamber. That’s a huge space filled with magma. That came from the mantle. There is huge pressure and heat there. That will force the magma up through the crack. If the pressure is great, magma erupts as lava.
   
Some eruptions are calm and quiet. But some are sudden and violent. Each time lava shoots out, a new layer of rock forms. This makes the volcano bigger. Through time, lots of them turn to high, cone-shaped mountains. There are two good examples with this type of shape. They are Mount Vesuvius in Italy and Mount Fuji in Japan. These two have something else in common. They are still “active.” An active volcano is one that has blown in the past 10,000 years. And it is likely to erupt again! When an active one has not blown in a long time, it’s called a “dormant” volcano. Extinct volcanoes are those that have not blown for at least 10,000 years.
   
   
Action at the Edge
   
If you wished to see a lot of volcanoes, where would you look? They form where there are cracks and weak spots in Earth’s crust. You’ll find those most of the time on the edges of tectonic plates that are moving apart. They’re found, too, where two plates are colliding and one plate is subducting under the other.
   
The Pacific Plate is one of Earth’s largest. It lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At its edges, it is subducting under a number of other plates. We call the places where this goes on “subduction zones.” Deep ocean trenches and lots of volcanoes have formed along subduction zones. This is because the edge of a subducting plate melts as it heads down to Earth’s hot mantle. Magma moves up through cracks in the crust. It then erupts to form volcanoes above the subduction zone.

World’s Tallest Mountain
   
The largest active volcano is Mauna Loa. It’s in Hawaii. Mauna Loa’s last big eruption was in 1984. Its peak is 13,796 feet above sea level. But its base sits on the seafloor. From top to bottom, this huge volcano measures more than 33,000 feet! Mount Everest is the world’s highest “land” mountain at 29,029 feet above sea level. But Mauna Loa is taller. This is because some 20,000 feet of Mauna Loa are beneath sea level.
   
More than 450 active volcanoes lie at the edges of the Pacific Plate. Those are just the ones on land! Lots more rise up from the seafloor. They’re hidden beneath the ocean’s surface. All these volcanoes form what is called the “Ring of Fire.” This is around much of the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the most volcanically active regions on Earth. Most of the world’s volcanoes form along the edges of tectonic plates. Those around the Ring of Fire are good examples of this.
    
    
Hotspots
   
Not all volcanoes form at plate edges. Some are found in places that we call “hotspots.” A hotspot is a hot region. It’s deep within the mantle. A huge magma chamber forms beneath Earth’s crust at a hotspot. Magma intermittently erupts from the chamber. It comes up through cracks in the crust. We have found dozens of hotspots worldwide. Some are beneath continental crust. Others are beneath oceanic crust. Hotspots that are below oceanic crust have formed lots of islands. This starts when magma coming up from a hotspot forms a volcano on the seafloor. With multitudinous eruptions, the volcano grows taller over time. At some point, the top of the volcano may rise above the ocean’s surface. That way, it will form an island.

As time passes, ocean hotspots may form chains of islands. This is because the hotspots stay in the same place, while tectonic plates keep moving. The Hawaiian Islands were formed by a hotspot beneath the middle of the Pacific Plate. The island of Kauai formed about 5 million years ago. It began as an undersea volcano. As time passed, it grew tall enough to rise above the water. Back then, the Pacific Plate inched its way northwest. But Kauai moved with it. At some point, the island was no more right above the hotspot. A new underwater volcano formed on the seafloor. This volcano grew to form the island of Oahu. Next came the island of Molokai. Then Maui came. And, at last, the island of Hawaii was formed. Now, it lies over the hotspot. And this is why it has so many active volcanoes. At some point, Hawaii will drift away from the hotspot. Then, a new island will begin to form! A few miles to the southeast of Hawaii, there is an underwater volcano. It’s called Loihi. We think that its top will reach the sea surface in tens of thousands of years.
    
    
A Garden of Geysers
   
Have you ever been to Yellowstone? That’s one of our best National Parks. If so, you’ve stood over North America’s largest hotspot. A great plume of magma rises from the mantle at this spot. It fills a huge magma chamber beneath Earth’s crust. In short, it sits on top of one of the world’s largest volcanoes. Geologists call it a “supervolcano.”
   
There’s a lot of heat from the magma beneath Yellowstone. That’s what creates the park’s hot springs and geysers. Geysers are hot springs that periodically erupt. They’re like volcanoes of hot water. They form when water drains down into openings in the ground that’s above the magma chamber. Heat from the magma turns the water scalding hot. The hot water rises back up through the openings. And some of it turns to steam. This builds the pressure. This forces the mixture of steam and hot water to rush and bubble up. It reaches the surface. Then, a hissing fountain of hot water and steam bursts out of the ground.
   
Yellowstone’s geysers and hot springs are all created by the heat of the huge pool of magma below the ground. Its most famous geyser is called “Old Faithful.” It got its name since it erupts predictably more than a dozen times a day. Magma itself has not erupted from this hotspot for 100s of years. Could the Yellowstone supervolcano erupt again? It might, geologists say. But most doubt that it will do so anytime soon.

Chapter Five: Mythic Volcano Spirits
   
The Big Question: How do volcano myths help explain volcanic activity?
   
A bursting volcano seems alive. It will hiss. It will rumble. It will make the ground shake. It’s easy to see why the ancients thought that spirits with power lived in volcanoes. There were beliefs about volcano gods. These helped folks “make sense of” volcanoes. Some thought that when they were quiet, it meant that the gods were content. Some thought that when volcanoes blew, it meant that the gods were mad. People tried to keep these gods happy. They’d bring offerings of food, flowers, and animals. They’d tell stories to help explain why unforeseeable events like volcanoes occurred. Lots of tales had volcano gods as part of the commentary. These tales, or myths, were told again and again. As time passed, these myths were a key part of a culture’s traditions. The myths were clever ways to “deal with” natural processes and events.

Hawaii’s Goddess of Fire
   
Pele is the ancient Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes. She’s known for creating volcanic mountains and islands. She unleashes fiery lava. When she does that, she destroys land and all that is on it. Belief in Pele began centuries ago. Hawaiians thought that the goddess lived in Kilauea. That’s an active volcano on the island of Hawaii. This myth tells the tale of how she came to make her home there.
   
A long way back, Pele lived in the spirit world. She lived with her parents. She had lots of brothers and sisters. She was strong-willed. She had a short temper. When she got mad, she caused things to burn. She would make lava burst from the ground. Pele got along with most of her siblings. But she did not like her sister, Na–maka-o-kaha’i. She was the goddess of the ocean and seawater. Over time, the two of them became bitter enemies. Pele left to find a new home. So, she set off across Earth’s ocean. She sailed in a great canoe. Some of her brothers, and her youngest sister, Hi’iaka, came with her.
   
The canoe landed on Kauai. That’s the northernmost isle in the Hawaiian Island chain. There, Pele met and fell in love with Lohi’au. He was the island’s king. She boldly asked him to marry her. After a bit of vacillation, Lohi’au said “yes.” Who could say no to a goddess? Pele wished to do one thing before the wedding could take place. She insisted on having a condign place for the couple to live. Pele’s picture of a good home was a huge hole in the ground. She wished to be warmed by fires of hot lava.
   
Pele had a magic digging stick. She would jab the stick into the ground. Then, a crater would open up. In it were flaring volcanic fires. She began to dig along Kauai’s rocky coast. But each time that she made a crater, seawater oddly flooded in and put out the flames. Much to her chagrin, Pele found that her sister, Na-maka-o-kaha’i, had followed her to Kauai. The sister was trying to ruin Pele’s plans. She tried to stop her from building a home and getting married.
   
Pele hoped to outmaneuver her despicable sister. She fled to Oahu. That’s the next island in the chain. She took her youngest sister, Hi’iaka, and her brothers with her. Na-maka-o-kaha’i tracked them. Once more, she caused seawater to fill each crater that Pele dug. So, Pele stayed on the move. She went to the isles of Molokai and Maui. There, too, Na-maka-o-kaha’i worked her watery enchantments. Time and again, she turned Pele’s craters into cold, wet holes in the ground.

At last, Pele reached Hawaii. That’s the largest island in the chain. She climbed a mountain. It was called Kilauea. She dug a crater at its top. The bright orange flames of volcanic fire flared. They did not go out. Her crater on Kilauea was far above the sea. It was out of the reach of the ocean goddess.
   
Pele was pleased with her new home. She sent Hi’iaka to fetch her husband-to-be from Kauai. She told her young sister to be back in less than 40 days. She also warned Hi’iaka not to fall in love with Lohi’au herself. In turn, Hi’iaka made Pele promise something. She was to protect a grove of pretty trees that grew on Kilauea. Hi’iaka loved the trees. She was worried about Pele losing her temper. If she did that, she would send out rivers of lava to burn the trees down.
   
The trip took longer than Hi’iaka thought that it would. By the time she reached Kauai and found Lohi’au, more than 40 days had passed. On the trip back to Hawaii, Hi’iaka grew lovesome towards Lohi’au. She also grew progressively more concerned about how Pele would act, since they were so late in getting back.
   
Hi’iaka at last reached Kilauea with Lohi’au. She looked in horror on her pretty forest. It was gone. It had been burned to the ground. That was due to Pele’s volcanic fire. So, she set out to punish her older sister. Hi’iaka kissed Lohi’au. Enraged, Pele now sent a huge river of lava streaming down the side of Kilauea. Lohi’au was buried beneath it.
   
Hi’iaka was driven by the need for more revenge. She dug into the rocky side of the volcano. Lava began to drain out. It flowed to the sea. One of Pele’s brothers stopped Hi’iaka. That was before all of Pele’s volcanic fire drained away. Since so much lava had been lost, the top of Kilauea collapsed. A great “caldera” was left behind. That’s a bowl-shaped depression. It can still be seen at the volcano’s top.
   
Two of Pele’s brothers took pity on the dead king. They also felt for Hi’iaka, who truly loved him. They dug Lohi’au out of the lava. They brought him back to life. Hi’iaka and Lohi’au were married. They lived happily ever after. And Pele stayed in her lofty volcano home. Some believe that Pele still lives in Kilauea. When the volcano erupts, they say that it’s a sign her fiery temper is flaring again.

Princess Power
   
In 1880, Mauna Loa blew. A large lava flow crept down the mountains. It headed toward the city of Hilo. There was a Hawaiian princess named Ruth Keelikolani. She went to the scene as the lava neared the city. She stood right in the path of the advancing lava. She recited old chants. She made offerings to Pele. The next day the lava flow stopped. This helped keep belief in Pele alive.
    
   
The Origin of Crater Lake
   
The Klamath Indians are in the Pacific Northwest. They have a myth about how Oregon’s Crater Lake came to be. This is a deep, nearly circinate lake. It fills a large caldera. That’s from a dormant volcano called Mount Mazama. It’s part of a chain of volcanoes. These make up a portion of the Cascade Mountain Range. It’s believed that Mazama’s caldera formed with its last major eruption. That was some 8,000 years ago. Rain and melted snow filled the caldera. This is what came to be known as Crater Lake. This Klamath myth about Mazama’s eruption and the lake’s formation has its roots in these geological events.

A long way back, the world was home to two great Spirit Chiefs. There was the Chief of the Below World. He was Monadalkni. He lived inside the Earth. He ruled all that was below ground. And there was the Chief of the Above World. He was Sahale Tyee. He ruled above the ground. That was from Earth’s surface to the starry heavens overhead.
   
Sometimes, Monadalkni would come to the Above World. He climbed up through the inside of a snow-covered mountain. He egressed from a hole at the top. From there, he could see far and wide. He could see the forests. He could see the rivers and the lakes. And he could see the camps of the Klamath people.
   
One day, Monadalkni saw the Klamath chief’s daughter. She was named Loha. He thought that she was the most gorgeous woman that he’d ever seen. Right then and there, he wished for her to be his wife. He came down from the mountain. He proposed to Loha. He promised her eternal life if she would marry him. But Loha refused.
   
So, Monadalkni sent one of his Below World servants to ask once more. The servant brought lots of gifts. He laid them out before Loha. He tried to cajole her into marrying his master. He reminded her that if she did, she would have eternal life. And she would live in the mountain forever. Loha refused, once more.
   
She ran to her father. She asked for help. The chief of the Klamath tribe called the tribal elders together. They all thought that Loha should try to hide from Monadalkni. So, she did.

Monadalkni was quite mad when he found out that Loha had said “no” yet again. He raged inside his mountain. He made it shake and rumble. He threw lightning bolts. He spewed fireballs from his mouth. The top of the mountain convulsed. This sent hot lava and choking clouds of ash raining down on the land. The Klamath waded into streams and lakes. They tried to escape Monadalkni’s fiery revenge. They cried out to Sahale Tyee for help.
   
The Chief of the Above World heard them. He came to the aid of his people. He fought Monadalkni. The two spirits waged a violent, fiery battle. Sahale Tyee soon gained the upper hand. He forced Monadalkni back down into his mountain. Sahale Tyee caused the top of the mountain to implode. For all time, this would shut off this entrance to the Below World.
   
The Klamath elders prayed for rain. The rains came. They put out the volcanic fires. Rainwater filled the caldera on the mountaintop. And that created the high, deep body of water known today as Crater Lake.

Chapter Six: Earth’s Building Blocks
    
The Big Question: How can changes in rocks over time be explained by the rock cycle?
     
You don’t have to look hard to find rocks. They’re all around you. And they’re under you, too! Earth’s crust is pretty much all rock. What are mountains, hills, and cliffs? They’re huge masses of rock that form landscape features. Think of pebbles in a streambed. They’re smooth, round rocks. Chunky bits of small rock form the gravel on a dirt road. Rocks go into making sidewalks and streets. Slabs of rock are on the outside of lots of buildings. Indoors, bits of rock can make up floors, walls, stairs, and counters. Museums are good places to see rocks that artists have carved into sculptures. The polished stones in some types of jewelry are rocks that people wear.
   
   
Rocks and Building Blocks
   
So, concretely, just what are rocks? They are naturally occurring materials. They are made of solid, nonliving substances. These are called “minerals.” Think of minerals as the building blocks of rocks. Some rocks are formed from just one mineral. Most rocks, though, are composites of two or more. Minerals show up as varied-size pieces, or grains, in rocks. Some rocks have small mineral grains. These can give the rocks a smooth, even texture. Other rocks have larger mineral grains. They may have a rough texture.
   
Think about a hike up a mountain. You pick up rocks as you walk. When you reach the top, you might have quite a compilation. Your rocks may have varied colors and textures. Some may have stripes or layers. Some might be hard. Some might be crumbly. Some have small grains. Some have large grains. They might glitter when they catch the light. All of this variety might seem befuddling. Yet geologists codify all rocks into just three classes, or basic types. They’re called “igneous,” “sedimentary,” and “metamorphic.”

Born from Magma: Igneous Rock
   
Let’s start with igneous rocks. This is the most abundant class of rocks on the Earth. These rocks form when magma cools and hardens. When you think of igneous rocks, think of volcanoes.
   
There are two basic types of this rock. One type forms from magma that erupts onto Earth’s surface as lava. The lava cools. It then hardens into rock. The faster it cools, the smaller the mineral grains will be in that rock. Obsidian is such a rock. It’s formed from lava that cooled fast. It cooled so fast that there was not time for the minerals to form grains. Thus, it is as smooth and burnished as glass. In fact, it is called “volcanic glass” lots of the time. Basalt is an igneous rock, too. It’s formed from lava that took more time to cool. It’s most often a dark-colored rock. It has fairly small mineral grains. These give it a fine-grained texture.
    
The second type of igneous rock forms from magma that hardens below Earth’s surface. Magma cools quite slowly when it’s deep beneath the surface. Slow cooling leads to rocks with large mineral grains. The slower the cooling, the larger the grains. Granite is a common igneous rock that forms from magma that cooled within Earth’s crust. It’s often embodied with grains that are large enough to see with the naked eye.
   
   
The Art of Making Stone Tools
   
Lots of prehistoric cultures made tools out of rock. In East Africa, we have found obsidian stone tools. They are nearly two million years old! Obsidian was much prized by ancient tool makers. It breaks into pieces. These have sharp edges that are good for cutting and piercing.
   
Ancient tool makers could make a very sharp cutting tool. They’d strike a block of obsidian with another harder rock. This caused a long, thin blade of obsidian to exfoliate. Yes, the blade was fragile. But it had super sharp edges. In fact, the edges of these blades are much sharper than metal scalpels used by surgeons today!
   
Making a spear tip or arrowhead was more time consuming. The tool makers started with a fairly flat piece of obsidian. They shaped it by striking off small flakes of rock. They struck off one after another, from the edges. They then shaped it into a sharp, durable pointed tool. It was often even pretty to look at.

Layer after Layer: Sedimentary Rock
   
Sedimentary rock is the second major class of rocks. These rocks are made of sediments. Those are small bits of rock and sand combined with remnants of once-living things. Sediments build up in low-lying regions. This can be both on land and in bodies of water. They form layers, one on top of another. Over a long time, the weight of overlying layers compacts the sediments in deeper layers. The weight squeezes them closer together. Sediments also become cemented together. This occurs as dissolved minerals fill the spaces between the sediments. As the sediments dry, the dissolved minerals turn into solids. This binds the sediments with each other. Over time, these processes turn sediments into sedimentary rock.
   
Most of these rocks are more easily broken than most igneous rocks. Hit a sedimentary rock with a hammer. It will crumble or break apart. Some of these rocks have fossils. Limestone is a sedimentary rock. It’s packed lots of time with the fossilized skeletons and shells of small ocean creatures. Some sedimentary rocks get their name from their sediments. Sandstone started as grains of sand. Mudstone formed from ancient mud. Look at the eroded formations of these sedimentary rocks in Badlands National Park. That’s in South Dakota. They show their distinct layers. The oldest ones are at the bottom.

Changing Form: Metamorphic Rock
   
Now let’s turn to the third major class of rocks. That’s metamorphic rock. These rocks form when igneous OR sedimentary rocks are exposed to extreme heat and pressure. They can even form from older metamorphic rocks. High temps and crushing pressure change the minerals in the rocks. Mineral grains may be flattened. They may be rearranged into layers, swirls, or stripes. They may also be changed into different minerals!
   
Do you recall granite, the igneous rock? When it is subjected to intense heat and pressure, it becomes a metamorphic rock called “gneiss.” What about when the sedimentary rock limestone is squeezed and heated deep below the ground? It turns to a metamorphic rock called “marble.”
   
Metamorphic rocks tend to form deep within Earth’s crust. The pressure from countless tons of rock from above is huge. Just as much power comes from the heat rising from hot magma. That’s in the mantle beneath the crust. Metamorphic rocks often form where tectonic plates are slowly colliding. They can form, too, as magma winds its way up through cracks in Earth’s crust. This heats the rocks around the cracks. If the heat of the magma completely melts the rock again, then it turns to igneous rock. But what if the rock is heated just enough to be changed? It instead turns to metamorphic rock.

Agnes Nyanhongo’s Stone Sculptures
   
Let’s head to Zimbabwe. We’ll meet Zimbabwean sculptor Agnes Nyanhongo. She started to carve rock at a young age. Her dad was named Claud. He was a sculptor, too. She worked in his studio as a young girl. She learned how to cut and polish rock. She is now one of Zimbabwe’s most well-known artists. She carves lots of her sculptures from a type of rock called “serpentine.” This is a metamorphic rock. The type of serpentine that Agnes gets is quite dark in color. She may polish just some parts of her sculptures. She’ll leave the rest to stay as pure raw stone.
    
    
The Rock Cycle
   
Think about rocks that you see. They might seem like immutable fixtures. Given a long time, though, all rocks change. They are created and destroyed. Then they’re recreated in a perpetual cycle. This unfolding process is termed the “rock cycle.”
   
The rock cycle has no start- or end-point. You can jump in at any time to see how it works. Let’s start with magma. It bursts from a huge volcano. The magma (now lava) cools and hardens. It turns to igneous rock. Track it over the course of 1,000s of years. Sun, wind, rain, and freezing temps cause the rock to weather. It will break down into small chunks. The chunks keep weathering. They’ll slowly break down into sediments. Over time, howling winds, flowing water, and gravity move the sediments down the sides of the volcano and beyond. Movement of sediments from place to place is called “erosion.”
   
Let’s say that the sediments end up in a lake. There, they sink down to the lake floor. Time moves on. More layers of sediments will drop on top of them. This turns to compacting and cementing processes. These will turn the buried sediments into sedimentary rock.

Now let’s say that this type of rock is near the edge of a tectonic plate. The plate collides with another plate. This will go on slowly, of course. Massive heat and pressure are created by the collision. Over time, this will turn the sedimentary rock into metamorphic rock. The plates keep colliding. Their rocky edges crumple. The metamorphic rock is slowly pushed up. It moves higher onto Earth’s surface. Think mountains! Exposed to air, rain, and snow, the rock begins to weather and erode.
   
But that’s not all of it. One plate might slide beneath another. The metamorphic rock at the edge of the descending plate gets hotter as it nears the mantle. At some point it melts into magma. That magma might burst from a volcano once more! To know how rocks change helps geologists see how the Earth has changed over time.

   
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
   

Geology: The Changing Earth
   

Lesson 13 – Part Three

    
NEW WORDS: Aconcagua, Blanc, Cameron, Cameron’s, Deepsea, Eurasian, Germany’s, Harz, Hillary, Himalaya, Indo, Korczak, Kunming, Mariana, Mont, Nazca, Norgay, Piccard, SUVs, Shilin, Tenzing, Tethys, Tetons, Trieste, Urals, Utah’s, Walsh, Yunnan, Ziolkowski, breakdown, brittle, bulkiest, carbonic, celled, collisions, crinoids, descent, enlarges, evaded, filmed, filmmaker, glimpses, gravestones, horizontally, hunched, hydrothermal, indestructible, interblend, looming, measureless, northward, parching, pothole, reacts, reworking, rock’s, sandblasting, seamount, seamounts, seesawing, skidded, stupefying, sub’s, trench’s, underlies, unobserved, unwaveringly, uplifted, weakens, wedges, wedging     
   
   

Chapter Seven: Earth’s High-Powered Forces of Change
   
The Big Question: How do weathering and erosion keep on reworking Earth’s surface?
   
You’re on a bike ride. Have you ever evaded a pothole while you’re on a ride? Or skidded on grit that rain had washed in your path? Potholes and grit might seem like little more than bike-riding hazards. Yet they show two forces of power at work. Weathering and erosion drive the rock cycle. They break down rock into sediments. They then move them to new places. With each other, weathering and erosion are slowly but unwaveringly changing Earth’s surface. They change things from the streets that we walk and drive on to the world’s tallest peaks.
   
   
Weathering at Work
   
Weathering breaks rock into smaller bits. Some of these small bits interblend with once-living material. This forms topsoil. Other small bits of rock build up as sediments. This breakdown of rocks happens as they have contact with air, water, and living things. There are two types of this. They are physical and chemical weathering.
   
Physical weathering breaks big rocks into smaller ones. This does NOT change the minerals that are in them. Widely seesawing temps cause physical weathering. Let’s look at rocks in a desert. They bake during the day. That’s due to the sun’s parching heat. As rocks get hot, they expand. At night, temps in the desert fall. As rocks cool down, they contract. They shrink a bit. Expand, contract, expand, contract. Over time, this endless cycle makes the rocks’ outer layers crumble or flake off.
   
Water can cause physical weathering, too. Water seeps into small cracks in rocks. What if temps drop below freezing? The water turns to ice. Water expands as it freezes. This pushes outward. It enlarges the cracks. This is called “ice wedging.” Each time the water freezes, it opens cracks a bit more. Over time, the rocks split up. Ice wedging is what makes potholes in streets, too.
   
Plants and animals cause rocks to weather, too. Tree roots squeeze into the cracks in rocks. As the roots grow, they act like wedges. They force the cracks wider and wider. After a time, the rocks break up. Badgers, chipmunks, and other creatures burrow into cliffs and hillsides. They act like small bulldozers. They dig and dig. When they do that, they push buried rocks to the surface. That’s where most of the weathering takes place.

Chemical weathering breaks down rocks, too. But it DOES change the minerals that are in them. Rain is such a strong force. As rain falls, it blends with the carbon dioxide gas that’s in the air. What we then get is called “acid rain.” Acid rain is strong enough to dissolve some minerals in rocks. Once dissolved, the minerals wash away. That weakens the rock. Acid rain slowly carves some rocks into new shapes. It can erase the lettering on old gravestones. It can blur the faces of stone statues. It eats at the outside of old and even modern buildings. Where rain seeps into the ground, carbonic acid causes weathering of buried rocks, as well. Over a long time, this often unobserved weathering creates caves deep under the ground.
   
There’s another gas in the air called oxygen. We need this to breathe! But it can cause chemical weathering in rocks. With a bit of help from water, oxygen reacts with iron-containing minerals. The reaction makes the minerals change. The rocks become brittle and crumbly. And then they turn to a rusty red color.
   
Some plants let go of rock-weathering substances. Take a peek under a patch of moss that grows on a rock. You’ll see small pits in the rock’s surface. Acid from the moss plant caused the damage.
   
What’s a result of all weathering? Well, rocks break down into smaller pieces and, in the end, into sediments. Erosion is what gets those sediments to move.
   
Tall rock formations caused by chemical weathering can rise straight up out of the ground. Let’s go to Kunming. That’s the capital of China’s Yunnan Province. Some formations are as tall as a 10-story building! The Chinese call this place Shilin. That means “the Stone Forest.”

Sediments on the Move
   
Geologists talk of erosion as a process or force that moves sediments to new places. Wind, water that flows, ice that moves, and gravity all move sediments from place to place. These forces are the main causes of erosion.
   
Have you stood on a sandy beach on a day with lots of wind? Did you note that gusts of wind sent sand flying past? When air moves quickly across the ground, it picks up sediments. It takes them away. Strong winds can take sediments for 100s, even 1000s, of miles.
   
On the windy beach, did your skin sting as it was struck by blowing sand? Wind that carries sediments can act like a sandblasting machine to wear away rocks in its path. Wind-driven sand hits rock. That chips off small pieces. The wind then whisks the pieces away. Over time, this form of weathering can polish rock surfaces. Or it can pepper them with small holes. It can shape huge blocks of rock into cool stone arches and lofty towers. Weathering and wind erosion can also leave huge boulders balanced on slim supports. Have you seen wind-carved rocks like this?
   
As wind slows down, the sediments it carries fall back to Earth. They are deposited on land or in water. Where winds take sediments regularly, layers of sediment slowly build up. Over time, those layers may be turned into sedimentary rock.

Heading Downstream
   
Like wind, water can cause erosion, too. The tug of gravity pulls sediments out of wind and water. Flowing water picks up these sediments. It takes them downhill to new places. A summer rain can wash fine sediments onto sidewalks and into gutters. A rushing mountain stream can sweep small stones into a valley. A flooded river can surge along. It can have enough force to move large rocks miles downstream.
   
As moving water slows, sediments sink to the floor of the river or stream. The bulkiest sediments are the first to be deposited. The finest sediments are the last. Layers of sediment build up at the mouths of rivers and on the floors of lakes. Vast layers of sediment filter down to the ocean floor as lots of time passes. Like wind-deposited sediments, those laid down by water may one day be turned to sedimentary rock.
   
Water does not have to be in its liquid state to erode sediments. Glaciers are huge masses of ice found in polar regions and near the tops of tall mountains. Though ice is solid, glaciers do move. They flow, quite slowly, downhill. Measureless tons of ice creep over land or down mountains. They push, drag, and bring eroded sediments with them. Moving glaciers also create sediments. That’s as they grind against rocks next to or below them. Glaciers are such huge forces that they can carve large U-shaped valleys through mountain ranges.
   
When glaciers melt, they deposit the sediments that they’ve been taking. Some 20,000 years ago, glaciers were in large parts of North America, Europe, and Asia. But the climate warmed. The glaciers melted. They then retreated northward. They left behind huge deposits of sand, gravel, and silt. And they left behind lots of rocks and boulders. You can still see these on the landscape. You’ll see these deposits as hills, mounds, and ridges.

Weathering, Erosion, and Time
   
Weathering and erosion work slowly. It takes a long time to see their effects. Given time, these processes reshape Earth’s surface. This is on a scale so large that you can’t quite grasp it. Let’s look at the Grand Canyon. It’s in the southwestern U.S. It was not there when dinosaurs roamed North America. Wind, rain, and the Colorado River slowly created it. These forces cut and shaped the landscape into what it is now. And it is one of the world’s largest canyons.
   
Let’s go back millions of years. We’ll head to the Appalachian Mountains. They’re in eastern North America. They were a tall mountain range. Their peaks may have been more than 20,000 feet above sea level. But weathering and erosion wore these mountains down. Yes, it took a long time. Their highest point now is just 6,684 feet high. As indestructible as mountains seem, weathering and erosion will, as time moves on, change them. Think about Earth’s tallest peaks. There’s Everest in Asia. There’s Aconcagua in South America. There are Africa’s Kilimanjaro and Europe’s Mont Blanc. They won’t last! It will take quite a while. But they will be worn down by these geological processes. But don’t fret. Other processes will create new mountains to take their place.

Chapter Eight: Earth’s Mighty Mountains
   
The Big Question: How do the movements and forces of tectonic plates build mountains?
   
The year was 1953. We meet mountain climbers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. They stood on the hard-packed snow. They gasped for breath in the thin air. Their faces burned from the ice-cold wind. Despite this, they grinned from ear to ear.
   
They had just made it to the top of Mount Everest. They were the first people to reach Earth’s highest point. That’s 29,029 feet above sea level. That’s 5.5 miles high!!
   
Mountains are some of Earth’s most awesome features. In 1953, we still searched for answers as to how they form. By the 1960s, the facts pointed to plate tectonics as a big force behind mountain building. As you read in Chapter 2, our planet’s rocky exterior is not one solid piece. It’s broken up into a series of huge tectonic plates.
   
These plates move slowly. But their movements have changed Earth’s features over time. Plate movements have moved Earth’s continents into varied positions. They have destroyed old oceans. They have created new ones. They have built mountain ranges in lots of ways, too.
    
     
Colliding Continents
   
Some of Earth’s highest mountain ranges formed as parts of continental crust collided over millions of years. The crash that formed Everest is a case in point. This mountain is part of the Himalaya Mountains. This is a vast, tall range between India and China. They formed when continents on two tectonic plates met head-on.
   
Can you find India on the map? It lies on the south edge of Asia. India was not always where it is now. Hundreds of millions of years back, it was an island. It sat out in the middle of the Indo-Australian Plate. It was separate from Asia, which sits on the Eurasian Plate. Between them was an ocean called the Tethys Sea.
   
The Indo-Australian Plate began to head north some 200 million years back. It was pushed by moving magma in the mantle below. It slowly crunched up with the Eurasian Plate. Where the two plates met, subduction took place. The oceanic crust of the Indo-Australian Plate was heavier. It slid under the lighter crust of the Eurasian Plate.
   
The Indo-Australian Plate kept moving north. India was brought with it. It inched closer to Asia. The Tethys Sea began to go away. India crashed with Asia some 40 million years back. India’s rocky crust pressed right against Asia’s crust. The two landmasses were pushed hard against each other. Then, the crust began to crumple. Huge pressure from the moving tectonic plate caused the rocky crust to heave upward. Great masses of rock rose up into a series of huge folds. The Himalayas were born!

More and more rocks were uplifted as the Indo-Australian Plate stayed on the move. The Himalayas rose higher still. In fact, they are still rising. They grow taller at the same rate that your fingernails grow! We call them “fold mountains.” The name refers to the way that rocks are pushed up into huge folds by moving tectonic plates. The Alps are Europe’s highest mountains. They are fold mountains, too. The Appalachians in North America and the Urals in Russia also formed through collisions of crust.
   
Like lots of fold mountains, the Himalayas have quite a bit of sedimentary rock. Why? In their case, it started with the Tethys Sea. For millions of years, erosion washed sediments from Asia and the island of India into the Tethys Sea. Layers of sediments, with remains of ocean creatures, had dropped to the seafloor. With time, pressure and heat helped turn them into sedimentary rock.
   
Plate movements brought India and Asia together. Some of these seafloor rocks were pushed up. Heat and pressure from the crashing plates turned some of them into metamorphic rocks. Other sedimentary rocks stayed unchanged. This is how fossils of ancient ocean creatures ended up on top of Mount Everest!

Fossils at the Top of the World
   
Trilobites and crinoids are two of the most seen types of fossils on Everest. Trilobites were hard-shelled ocean creatures. They were a bit like crabs and lobsters are now. They lived on the floor of Earth’s oceans back then. That included the Tethys Sea. Crinoids were creatures, too. But they looked more like plants. Trilobites and most crinoids became extinct about 250 million years back. A few types of crinoids still live far below the ocean’s surface.
   
   
Folding at the Edges
   
Let’s head to South America’s west coast. The oceanic Nazca Plate has been sliding under the South American Plate. That’s gone on for millions of years. This has caused huge folds of rock to pile up on the edge of the continent. These folds are now the Andes Mountains. That’s the longest mountain range on land.
    
As you read in Chapter 4, the edge of a subducting plate melts as it heads down into Earth’s hot mantle. The magma that’s formed moves up through cracks in the crust. It may erupt on the surface to form volcanoes. The edge of the Nazca Plate is melting. That’s as it slides beneath the South American Plate. Erupting magma has spawned lots of volcanoes in the Andes range.
   
   
Faults and Blocks
   
The longest, highest mountain ranges on land are fold mountains most of the time. But moving tectonic plates build mountains in more ways than that. “Fault-block mountains” form when huge blocks of rock move up and down on faults.
   
At some faults, blocks of rock move horizontally past each other as they slip. The San Andreas Fault that you learned about above is like that. At other faults, slips cause blocks of rock on one side of the fault to move up. These slips cause blocks on the other side of the fault to move down. Repeated slips force these rock blocks higher, and lower. This creates fault-block ranges.
   
Most of the time, fault-block mountains have one steep side and one side that slopes. The steep side forms a high, sheer cliff. Germany’s Harz Mountains are one kind of fault-block range. Others include the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. And there are the Basin and Range Province of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona.

Under the Dome
   
Think of the word “mountains.” When you hear that word, most folks think of sharp, jagged peaks. “Dome mountains” are not like that. They look like great humps of rock. And they have rounded tops. They can occur as isolated mountains on otherwise flat plains.
   
Some dome mountains form when magma pushes up into Earth’s crust from the mantle. The magma cools into igneous rock. That’s before it can reach the surface. This huge lump of igneous rock causes the crust above it to bulge. It’s like a blister on skin. Utah’s Navajo Mountain is a kind of a dome mountain that formed this way.
   
    
Mountains on the Prairie
   
The Black Hills are in west South Dakota. You can see them from a long way off. These are dome mountains. They rise up from the grassy plains. They look like dark, hunched shapes. They are the highest mountains east of the Rockies. Granite forms the core of the Black Hills. They faced millions of years of weathering and erosion. This exposed its igneous rock in lots of places. The sculptor Gutzon Borglum made one tall chunk of granite in the Black Hills famous. He carved the faces of four U.S. presidents into the rock. That is the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. One other sculpture in the Black Hills is well-known, too. That’s the world’s largest sculpture in progress. Crazy Horse Memorial honors North American Indian heritage. It depicts the face of the Sioux leader Crazy Horse. It was started in 1948. That sculptor was Korczak Ziolkowski. Work on the huge sculpture still goes on today.

Chapter Nine: Earth’s Undersea World
   
The Big Question: How does the movement of tectonic plates shape and change the seafloor?
   
Let’s say that you’re dropping down into the Atlantic Ocean. The water outside your submersible gets dark. Soon all light fades out. You see a watery world as black as night. Soon, the sub’s lights pick up shapes. That’s when the floor comes into view. You see hills that look like lumps. You see looming peaks of dark volcanic rock. You’re now at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The ridge marks the edge between some huge tectonic plates. Chunks of these plates form the floor of the Atlantic.
   
   
Mountains and Moving Plates
   
In Chapter 8, you learned some of the ways that Earth’s tectonic plates build mountains. This takes millions of years. Their movements have built lots of mountain ranges on land. These plates build mountains underwater, too. In fact, there are more mountains on the seafloor than on all of Earth’s continents and islands combined.
   
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a long, rugged undersea range. It runs for 1000s of miles. It’s on the edge between tectonic plates that meet in the center of the Atlantic. The plates are slowly moving apart at this boundary.
   
Do you recall Wegener? He came up with the thought of continental drift in the early 1900s. At the time, though, no one knew of a force with the power to move continents on Earth’s surface. The theory of “seafloor spreading” was a big clue to solving the mystery.
   
Seafloor spreading was one of a few key facts that led to the thought of plate tectonics. Think of the continents as riding on top of the plates. As the plates move, so do the continents.
   
What first made us come to the thought of seafloor spreading? It was the study of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. They thought that, as the seafloor spreads, the continents on both sides of the Atlantic are pushed apart.
   
Then we soon found that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is just one of lots of mid-ocean ridges. They are found in all of the world’s seas. And they’re found where tectonic plates move apart. Added up, mid-ocean ridges form a near-continuous chain of mountains. They wrap around the Earth like the stitching on a baseball. They span 40,389 miles! This chain of mid-ocean ridges is by far the world’s longest mountain range. It is the most volcanically active, too.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is just a part of this huge undersea mountain chain. Lava that erupts has built up high walls of basalt on both sides of the rift. The rift is close to as deep as the Grand Canyon! If you move along the ridge, you’ll soon see more than just high walls of dark rock.
    
    
Hydrothermal Vents
   
At first glance, it looks like a fire. Black smoke shoots up from a spot in the ridge. It’s not smoke, though. It’s searing hot, dark water. It’s gushing out of cracks in the rock. It’s a “hydrothermal vent.”
   
These are a bit like geysers. These deep-sea geysers are much hotter than those on land. These vents form as seawater sinks down through cracks in the sea crust. It nears the magma that lies below the crust. Then the water heats to very high temps. It can reach a stupefying 750 degrees Fahrenheit! The water is so hot that it dissolves minerals from the basalt that’s around it. The minerals are now part of the hot liquid. That’s like salt does when it’s stirred into a glass of water.
   
At one of these vents, the super-heated, mineral-rich water roars back up through cracks in the crust. It shoots out of the rock with the force of water that blasts out of a fire hydrant. What happens when hot vent water meets cold seawater? The dissolved minerals in vent water become solid again. They form small particles. The particles make the vent water look like dark smoke.

Hunting for Hydrothermal Vents
   
How do scientists find these vents? They hunt for them from ships at sea. Hot, mineral-rich vent water moves slowly away from these vents. It forms a plume, or cloud, of mineral particles. They drift away from the vent. That’s kind of like smoke from a chimney. If they find a plume, they send down a robot vehicle. When it finds the vent, it sends pictures back to them.
   
There is more to hydrothermal vents than clouds of hot, black water. Communities of amazing and odd animals live by lots of these deep-sea geysers. Red-topped giant tube worms are the largest creatures near vents. Some types of these tube worms can grow as tall as a person. The vents are also home to ghostly white crabs. And one can find football-sized clams and pale, blind shrimp.
   
We think that there are tens of 1,000s of these vents along the world’s mid-ocean ridges. But we have explored just a handful of them. To find a new one is always fun. Lots of the time, we find new types of creatures, as well.
   
   
Seamounts and Subduction Zones
   
Seamounts are another type of undersea mountain. A seamount is an undersea volcano that can come in lots of shapes and sizes. Some are just a few hundred feet high. Others tower 1000s of feet above the seafloor. But their tops are still far beneath the sea’s surface. If a seamount grows high enough to rise above the ocean’s surface, it becomes an island.
   
Seamounts can form where magma erupts through the crust. Lots of them form along mid-ocean ridges or subduction zones. They can form, too, over hotspots far from plate edges. The islands that make up the Hawaiian Island chain began as seamounts. As you read in Chapter 4, each isle formed over a hotspot that underlies the center of the Pacific Plate. As a result of lots of volcanic eruptions, each island began as a small seamount that grew as time passed. At some point, its top broke the water’s surface. That turned it into an island.

We think that there are at least 100,000 seamounts over 3,000 feet tall in the world’s seas. Since most of them are far down, studying them is hard to do. We have looked at a few firsthand. We had to go down in submersibles. More often, they send robots down to check them out.
   
No two seamounts are the same. Lots of them teem with life, even those that are far down. Water that flows around these deep-sea volcanoes brings up nutrients from the ocean floor. Nutrients fuel the growth of tiny, single-celled organisms in the water. These, in turn, are food for larger organisms. This includes creatures that live on and around seamounts. Lots of the time, seamounts are home to deep-sea corals, sponges, brittle stars, crabs, and anemones. Great schools of fish live near seamounts, too.
   
    
Into the Trenches
   
Seamounts are not the only undersea features that form near subduction zones. Where one plate slides under another, the seafloor dips down to create narrow, deep valleys. These trenches are the deepest places on Earth.
   
The Mariana Trench is in the Pacific. It’s the deepest ocean trench that we have. It lies just off the Mariana Islands. They are east of the Philippines. This trench is 100s of miles long. But it’s just 43 miles wide. It’s like a deep slash in the ocean floor.  The trench’s deepest known point is a place called the “Challenger Deep.” It is 36,070 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. That’s almost seven miles down. To compare things, the mean depth of the ocean is about 14,000 feet.
   
What’s it like in the ocean’s deepest spot? It is pitch black. The temperature of the water is only a few degrees above freezing. The water pressure is very high. It’s like three big SUVs pressing down on every inch of your body!
   
Just three people have gone to the floor of the Mariana Trench. (More people have landed on the moon!) A few robots have made the trip, too. These trips have given us just brief glimpses of this remote and extreme environment.

The Lucky Three
   
As of 2014, people have gone to the floor of the Mariana Trench just twice. The first trip took place in 1960. The explorers were U.S. Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss scientist Jacques Piccard. Their undersea sub was called Trieste. It took them almost five hours to head down from the ocean’s surface to the floor of Challenger Deep. They peered out of a small window onto a part of the Earth that no one had seen before.
   
In 2012, a Canadian filmmaker and ocean explorer also made the trip. He was James Cameron. His vessel was called “Deepsea Challenger.” It was a slim, one-person, undersea sub. Cameron’s descent took just over two and a half hours. He did something that Walsh and Piccard could not do. He filmed the trip down and the view that he had of the ocean floor at 35,756 feet.

   
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
   

Geology: The Changing Earth
   

Lesson 14 – Part Four

    
NEW WORDS: Alvin, Arabian, Cappadocia, Cappadocia’s, Cappadocian, Capri, Cocos, Erciyes, Erciyes’s, Fuca, Galapagos, Herculaneum, Indonesia’s, Ischia, Italy’s, Maunga, Miseno, Misenum, Naples, Nui, Paricutin, Philippine, Pinatubo, Plinian, Pliny, Pliny’s, Procida, Rapa, Sorrento, Stabia, Terevaka, Teton, Vesuvius’s, aftershock, altar, altars, alternately, analyzed, ashfall, brows, canyon’s, carvers, catastrophe, cementation, cheekbones, chemosynthesis, chemosynthetic, chimneys, collide, compaction, debating, depositing, descends, dwellers, earthquake’s, eerily, engraving, enrichment, entomb, epicenters, evacuate, excavations, featuring, flickered, holocaust, homeowners, invigilate, looms, moai, monasteries, monastery, monks, pics, pinnacles, porthole, portholes, pyroclastic, scald, seeped, sensor, sensors, skyward, solidified, solidifies, solidify, solidifying, triggering, tuff, undisturbed, ventilation, volcanologist, volcanologists, wrongdoing
   
   

Enrichment One
   
The Rock Towns of Cappadocia
   
Few houses are as old, or as strange, as those in Cappadocia, Turkey. They have rock walls, floors, and ceilings. Their doors and windows are just openings in rock. Some of them have tall, pointed rock towers. They rise from their rock roofs. Some have hidden rooms, secret passageways, and tunnels that lead deep underground. Everything is made of rock.
   
Cappadocia is a region of Turkey found in the west-central part of the country. Its cave-like rock houses are famous. And there are 1,000s of them. They are clustered into rock villages and towns. People have been carving and living in these houses for more than 2,000 years. Volcanoes, though, laid the first foundations.
   
   
Eruptions and Erosion
   
Mount Erciyes looms on the horizon near Cappadocia’s rock towns. It is an active volcano. And it’s the highest mountain in this part of Turkey. Erciyes’s rocky peak is 12,848 feet high. In winter, it’s dusted with snow much of the time.
   
Just minor eruptions have shaken this mountain in recorded times. But at times in the distant past, Erciyes and volcanoes near it were much more active. During one or more major eruptions, huge clouds of ash were blasted out. The ash rained down on the countryside. It collected in some places to form large, thick deposits. Over time, this ash solidified. It hardened into a type of volcanic rock that we call “tuff.” In parts of what is now Cappadocia, layers of tuff formed that were 100s of feet thick.
   
Then weathering and erosion went to work. Wind and water slowly carved the tuff. It turned into ridges, mounds, and sharp pinnacles. The tallest of these slender, soaring rock formations are called hoodoos. Some rise more than 100 feet above the Cappadocian landscape. Some folks call hoodoos “fairy chimneys.” That’s because they look like something that you might read about in a fairy tale.

Hoodoos around the World
   
You can find hoodoos on almost every continent. Most are formed from sedimentary rock. Just a few come from volcanic tuff. All of them, though, are the product of weathering and erosion. Bryce Canyon is in the western U.S. It has tons of hoodoos. Wind, rain, and ice wedging have carved them out of sedimentary rock that is 40 to 60 million years old. Geologists and visitors have named some of Bryce Canyon’s largest hoodoos. One of the coolest ones is called “Thor’s Hammer.”
    
    
Carving Out Caves
   
No one knows who first carved into Cappadocia’s rock formations to make living, or hiding, spaces. Creating a cave was not hard. Tuff is quite soft before it is exposed to air. You scrape away the hard outer surface. Then the fresh rock can be cut simply with basic tools. The surface of newly carved rock hardens fast in dry air. After that, it will keep its shape for 100s of years.
   
In the 300s, this region was a landing spot for lots of early Christians. It was a place where they felt safe from the rest of the world. These religious refugees made the caves into larger rock dwellings. They built rooms for eating and sleeping. They carved out stables for animals. They made storage rooms for food. They cut staircases into hoodoos. They formed high towers. These had windows that looked out onto the nearby plains. From these high places, they could see trouble coming from a long way off. Blocks of dwellings grew into villages, then towns.

These early settlers spread out underground, too. They dug into the underlying tuff. They carved out living spaces more than five stories deep. A maze of tunnels, staircases, and passageways connected varied sections. There were even rock ventilation systems! These brought down fresh air from above ground. The underground excavations grew, over time. There ended up being a few dozen towns. They were large enough to shelter 1,000s of people. If invaders or some other kind of threat appeared, those in the rock towns that were above-ground would head underground.
   
By the 600s, Christian monks had built more elaborate rock dwellings. They built large monasteries in which to live. These had sleeping quarters, large kitchens, and cellars for stored food and drink. Each monastery had its own church. At first, the churches were simple and plain. Over time, they became more elaborate. By the 1000s and 1100s, these monks were building churches with high, arched ceilings and large altars. Artists decorated the walls and ceilings with gorgeous paintings. Thanks to the region’s dry climate, lots of these works of art have survived for 100s of years with little damage.

Preserving the Past
   
In 1985, part of Cappadocia’s rock town complex was made a World Heritage Site. These sites are special places that are important to protect. The rock houses are carefully maintained to preserve their historical value. Tourists come from all over the world to see these odd rock towns. Guides lead them through tunnels and passageways. You need a guide, as it is easy to get lost. Tourists can stay in rock houses that have been turned into small hotels. Think about spending the night in a rock room that was carved by hand 100s of years ago! One thing that tourists find is that there is no need for air conditioning or heating. Houses made of tuff stay cool in summer and warm in winter.
   
Lots of folks who walk the streets of these rock towns are not tourists. They live there. And the rock houses are their homes. The walls and floors are 100s of years old. But the homes have running water. And they have rugs on the floor, and curtains in the windows. When homeowners make changes, though, they sometimes get a surprise. Some have tried to make new rooms in their rock houses. They’ve started to scrape the walls. But they might break through into other old caves. These have been undisturbed for 100s of years!

The Tuff Carvers of Easter Island
   
Easter Island is another place that’s famed for structures that were carved from tuff. There are 100s of huge statues here. They dot the hills of this South Pacific isle. The statues are called “moai.” They are partial human figures. They have large heads, high cheekbones, and heavy brows. Except for varied heights, all of these moai look much the same. The Rapa Nui people were the natives on Easter Island. They carved the moai from tuff. The tuff came from the sides of a volcanic crater near Maunga Terevaka. That is the island’s largest volcano.
   
How did they make the statues? Rapa Nui carvers used blocks of tuff. They cut it from the crater walls. They used sharp stone tools. These were made of basalt. With these tools, they could cut and shape the softer rock. The carvers shaped moai right in the wall of the crater. They would finish the fronts of the statues. Then they would chip the huge statues free from the crater wall. Then the moai were moved to a final landing place. We are still debating how the Rapa Nui might have moved the moai. However they did it, it was quite a task. The largest moai weigh over 80 tons! The biggest mystery that still surrounds the moai is why the Rapa Nui carved them. Some folks have suggested that moai were carved to honor chiefs or ancient ancestors. But no one knows for sure.

Enrichment Two
   
Violent Vesuvius
   
Mount Vesuvius looms above the Bay of Naples. That’s on Italy’s west coast. Vesuvius is one of a number of Italian volcanoes. They formed where two tectonic plates are slowly colliding. One plate creeps beneath the other. Then magma rises up through cracks in Earth’s crust. Over time, erupting magma has created Vesuvius and its volcanic neighbors.
   
Lots of volcanologists think that Vesuvius is one of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes. (A volcanologist is a volcano scientist.) Why? It has been one of Europe’s most active volcanoes. It is within a few miles of a number of large cities. A major eruption could harm the lives of at least three million people.
   
Scientists invigilate over Vesuvius closely. They have placed dozens of sensors on the sides of the mountain. If you hiked to the crater on Vesuvius’s top, you would see some of these sensors by the trail. The sensors record the mountain’s slightest movement. Any odd shaking can be a sign that an eruption is coming. The sensors also record info about the hot gases that rise from the volcano’s crater. A change in these gases is a sign of trouble, as well.
   
Scientists look at sensor data 24 hours a day. They give a warning if the data suggests that an eruption is brewing. When this happens, people who live near the Bay of Naples are urged to evacuate. Scientists worry that there might not be enough time for 1000s of people to get to a safe distance from the volcano. This mountain has a track record of erupting quite suddenly.
   
Its last eruption was in 1944. For nearly two weeks, the volcano sent up billowing clouds of ash and gas. Fountains of lava shot up from its crater. Yet this eruption was minor compared to the one in 79 CE. That was the largest, most devastating Vesuvius eruption in recorded time. Millions of tons of hot ash and volcanic rock buried a number of Roman towns at the mountain’s base. Up to 16,000 people died.
   
The 79 CE eruption of Vesuvius was almost 2,000 years ago. Yet we know a great deal about it because of evidence that was left behind. Part of these facts are from an eyewitness account. These are from a 17-year-old Roman known as Pliny the Younger. He lived through this holocaust and wrote about it in a letter.

Eyewitness to Disaster
   
Let’s head to the summer of 79 CE. Pliny and his mother were staying with his uncle. They lived in Misenum. That was a town at the northern edge of the Bay of Naples. It was some 20 miles from Vesuvius. They could see the mountain across the bay.
   
It was an August afternoon. Pliny’s mother saw a strange cloud. It was forming across the bay. Pliny described it in his letter:
   
“The cloud was rising from a mountain that we later learned was Vesuvius. Its shape was a pine tree. It rose into the sky on a trunk that seemed to have branches.”
   
What did Pliny and his mother see? It was the first stage of Vesuvius’s eruption. Hot gas from deep inside the volcano had erupted. It had sent a giant column of ash and volcanic rock blasting up into the air. At its top, the cloud was spreading outward. It had a shape like a mushroom or umbrella. In Pliny’s thoughts, it looked like an Italian pine tree.
   
His uncle sailed across the bay to learn more. Pliny stayed behind with his mother. Earthquakes shook the ground again and again. Ash and smoke filled the air. By morning, the sky was still dark. The air was thick with volcanic ash. All of the sunlight was blocked. Ash fell like snow from the sky. Pliny and his mother headed for the hills above Misenum. They were joined by a crowd of panicked folks from the town.

They were on the hillside above the town. Pliny looked back across the bay toward Vesuvius. The towering pine-tree-shaped cloud above the volcano was still there. But now it had turned black. Lightning and sheets of orange flame flickered inside it. Then, as Pliny watched, the giant cloud seemed to collapse. It fell from the sky. It swept down the side of the mountain. Part of it surged out over the water of the bay. It rolled toward them. Pliny grabbed his mother’s hand. He tugged her farther up the hillside. He wrote:
   
“A dense cloud came up behind us. It spread over the Earth.”
   
Have you ever been in a room with no windows when the lights went out? That is how Pliny described the darkness. He and his mother crouched down. They were scared to move since they could not see anything at all. He described the scene:
   
“Ashes fell again. This time they were in heavy showers. We shook them off. If we hadn’t, we would have been buried beneath them.”
   
Time dragged on. Pliny was sure that he would die. Then slowly, the darkness lifted. The ashfall slowed. It finally stopped. He saw that everything around him was covered in drifts of volcanic ash. He was sure that the worst was over.
   
A few days passed. Pliny and his mother learned that his uncle was dead. He had died trying to help evacuate people from Pompeii. That was a nearby city. What about the towns near the bottom of the volcano? Pompeii and other towns at the volcano’s base were gone. They were completely buried under volcanic ash and rock.

Buried Evidence
   
Pliny’s letter gave us good clues about Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 CE. Pompeii and the other buried towns gave us even more info. It took 100s of years, though, to find them. In 1748, some folks were looking for Roman artifacts. They dug near what had been Pompeii.
   
Shovels cut into the soft volcanic rock. The diggers found that ash had preserved Pompeii! Buildings still stood. Streets were still littered with objects that folks had dropped as they tried to flee. Inside homes, loaves of bread and food inside clay jars were still recognizable.
   
The remains of some living things were eerily recognizable, too. The volcanic cloud had swept down from Vesuvius. Hot volcanic ash covered people and animals in seconds. They were entombed where they had fallen.
   
Excavations still go on at Pompeii. Herculaneum was another town buried by Vesuvius. It has also been uncovered. Workers have restored lots of the houses, temples, and streets in these towns. They have cleaned and repaired paintings, sculptures, and mosaics. If you visit these two towns, you can walk down ancient Roman streets. They look much like they did the day before the volcanic disaster. You can see where kids your age played games. You can see where they ate their meals and slept. You can look out ancient windows and see Vesuvius. It’s still active, high above the towns.

Details of the Disaster
   
Scientists have pieced together a detailed account of the event. When Vesuvius erupted, it created the huge cloud that Pliny saw. Hot volcanic material rained down from this cloud. It fell onto Pompeii and other nearby towns. Hot ash fell and built up into piles on the ground. Yet most folks living in the towns at the volcano’s base seem to have survived the ashfall. Some fled on foot or in boats. Most of the folks stayed and went back to their homes. We suspect that they thought the worst was over. But they were wrong.
   
The looming cloud that hung above Vesuvius collapsed. Pliny saw it from his viewpoint across the bay. As millions of tons of hot volcanic materials dropped toward Earth, they gained speed. This turned into what scientists call “pyroclastic flows.” This is a sort of avalanche. It’s made up of intensely hot ash, rock fragments, and volcanic gas. It rolls down the side of a volcano as fast as a speeding train.
   
When Vesuvius’s pyroclastic flows hit Pompeii and Herculaneum, there was no time for people to react. In seconds, these avalanches swallowed up everything in their path. They preserved a point in time. It was a terrifying moment for the towns’ inhabitants. For us, it is a unique glimpse into a world long ago.

Plinian Eruptions
   
The most powerful volcanic eruptions produce a huge cloud of ash, bits of rock, and toxic gas. The cloud shoots skyward at 100s of feet per second. This eruption column can soar dozens of miles into the air. At the top of this rising column, the cloud spreads outward. Pliny described the shape quite well. Volcanologists call eruptions that produce such clouds “Plinian” eruptions in his honor. Other such eruptions include Mount St. Helens in 1980. That is in the state of Washington. Another is Indonesia’s Mount Pinatubo. That was in 1991.

Enrichment Three
   
A Deep-Sea Detective Story
   
We’ve talked of the finding of seafloor spreading at mid-ocean ridges. This was a turning point in geology. It helped to show how continents move. It’s now a key part of what we know about plate tectonics.
   
The finding of mid-ocean ridges also changed how lots of scientists thought about the ocean floor. Up until that time, many thought that it was a fairly boring place. It was thought to be cold, dark, and mostly lifeless. Now, they’d found all of these volcanic goings-on along mid-ocean ridges. Was that all, or were more intriguing things going on down there?
   
Some thought about volcanic activity on land. As you now know, Yellowstone is a volcanically active place. True, no lava comes up there (at least it hasn’t for quite a long time). But geysers and hot springs are all over the park. We learned how Yellowstone’s geysers form. Water seeps into deep cracks in the crust. The water is heated to high temps. That’s due to magma that lies below the crust. Then a mix of hot water and steam shoots back to the surface. There, it bursts out of the ground.
   
“Were there geysers along mid-ocean ridges?” scientists asked. All the input factors were there. You had water. You had cracks in the crust. You had magma just below. What would occur if seawater seeped down into cracks along the mid-ocean ridges? Would it not be heated by magma beneath the crust? Wouldn’t this hot seawater then erupt to form deep-sea geysers?
   
This thought made sense. But we had to prove that these deep-sea geysers, or hydrothermal vents, really were out there. The scientists became detectives. Their first step was to look for clues near mid-ocean ridges.
   
    
Deep Heat
   
Let’s go to the 1880s. We find a Russian ship there. It sails across the Red Sea. It’s getting water samples from the seafloor. Water on or near the ocean floor is just a few degrees above freezing. Sunlight can’t reach such great depths. Cold water, like cold air, sinks. So, the ocean floor is mostly a dark, cold place. But they found something much to their surprise. The water samples that they pulled from the Red Sea’s floor were warm. They were warmer than water at the surface!
   
By the 1960s, we knew that there was a mid-ocean ridge in the Red Sea. They came across the old Russian water data. They said that they’d get their own samples from the seafloor near the Red Sea’s mid-ocean ridge. One such sample measured a toasty 111 degrees. That’s quite a hot bath! A sample of mud from the ridge was even warmer. It was 133 degrees. That’s hot enough to scald skin! Oddly, the hot sediment had all sorts of minerals in it. Everyone asked, “why are these minerals there?”

Colored Rocks
   
We move to the early 1970s. Water samples were obtained from other mid-ocean ridges. Each time, they found spots where the water was warm. Rocks were dredged up from these sites. Most were dark basalt. A few rocks, though, had bright colors. These rocks were analyzed. It was found that they had started out as basalt. But their minerals had changed. Such change was like when rocks contact very hot water.
   
Was hot water from hydrothermal vents what had changed the rocks? That’s what was thought. Is was said that as magma-heated seawater rises up through cracks in oceanic crust, it heats the basalt around it. The heat will change minerals in the basalt. Then, some of those minerals will dissolve in the hot water. As the hot water bursts from the seafloor, these dissolved minerals turn solid again. So, they leave the water to mix with seafloor sediments. At this point, scientists were sure that hydrothermal vents would be found on mid-ocean ridges. The next step was to prove it.
    
   
The Search Starts
   
Research ships headed to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They sailed near mid-ocean ridges. They took water temps. They dredged up rocks. They found sites that had some hope. They sent down small robots with cameras. Pictures were snapped of the scene far in the depths. Some pics showed mounds of rock. They were covered with mineral deposits. Were these warm, mineral-rich sites the hydrothermal vents that they hoped for? To be sure, they had to get a firsthand look.
   
At the time, there were just a few undersea subs that could take people all the way to the seafloor. These small subs were owned by the military. They were used to get things from the ocean floor. And they were used to help rescue sailors who were trapped in sunken ships. Lots of folks thought that to use these subs for ocean study would be a waste of time and cash. Even so, those looking for hydrothermal vents in the end won support for a joint French-American expedition. It was called “Project FAMOUS.” That stood for “French-American Mid-Ocean Undersea Study.” Its target was the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
   
The project was a huge undertaking. It took two years to get things prepped. Three subs took part. One was called Alvin. In 1974, a small group of lucky scientists were the first people to come face-to-face with a mid-ocean ridge. They saw great mounds of volcanic rock. They even saw the narrow rift along the top of the ridge where lava bursts out to create new crust. But they did not see one hydrothermal vent.

Galapagos Luck
   
Folks were disappointed. But they did not give up. A new team went to look for vents along the Galapagos Rift. This is a mid-ocean ridge west of Central America. The data gathered showed both warm water and mineral deposits at a number of sites along this ridge.
   
The Galapagos Hydrothermal Expedition began in early February 1977. The team had lots of instruments. But they had just one sub. And that was Alvin. The project kicked off. They lowered a camera-equipped vehicle down near the seafloor. For hours, they towed the small vehicle over the ridge. It snapped a picture every few seconds.
   
They studied the photos with great care. It took a long time. That’s because there were 3,000 photos! Nearly all showed just barren volcanic rock. But 13 photos made their hearts beat fast. They were taken at a place on the ridge where the temps were higher. They clearly showed rocks covered with mineral deposits. Nestled among the rocks were 100s of large white clams. Were these creatures there because the water was warm? Were they clustered around a hydrothermal vent?
   
It was February 17, 1977. Alvin dropped down to the site. A pilot and two scientists sat cramped together inside the small sub. When it reached the ridge, the men stared out through small portholes. They saw an amazing sight. Jets of hot, shimmering water were gushing out of cracks in the rock. It mixed with cold water. Then the hot vent water instantly turned cloudy. That’s due to the dissolved minerals solidifying. Small mineral particles fell like snow.
   
They had done it! They had followed the clues to a major finding. For the first time, they had found a hydrothermal vent along a mid-ocean ridge. Along with the vent, they had also found unexpected life. Seeing big white clams in a photo was one thing. Seeing them in person was much more exciting. The clams around the vent were huge. They were unlike any clams that they had ever seen.

The Big Surprise
   
In the months and years that followed, scientists found lots more hydrothermal vents. Bizarre animals lived near most of them. What were the creatures doing there? How did they live in a world of total darkness? And what did they live on? Just rock, minerals, and hot water? Research gave us the answer. And that shocked the world.
   
On or near Earth’s surface, most living things depend on sunlight as the prime source of energy. Green plants and algae use sunlight to make food. They do this through a process called photosynthesis. Lots of creatures eat plants or algae. Other creatures eat the plant-eaters.
   
Sunlight does not reach the seafloor. So, how do vent dwellers live? It was found that the creatures survive thanks to bacteria. Vents are home to odd types of bacteria. They use chemicals in hot vent water, and not sunlight, to make food. This is called “chemosynthesis.” Near hydrothermal vents, chemosynthetic bacteria are like plants and algae in the sunlit world above. Some vent creatures eat the bacteria directly. Others eat the bacteria-eaters. It’s a deep-sea food chain. And we did not know that it was out there until 1977! To find deep-sea hydrothermal vents and their communities of animals was one of the biggest discoveries of the 1900s.

   
   
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Glossary
   
active volcano, a type of volcano that has erupted in the past 10,000 years and is likely to erupt again (active volcanoes)

aftershock, a smaller, weaker earthquake that often follows a main earthquake event (aftershocks)

altar, a platform or table used as a center of worship in religious ceremonies or services (altars)
   
   
basalt, heavy, dense rock formed from cooled, hardened lava

basin, a large area in the earth that is lower than the area around it (basins)

bitter, resentful and angry because of unfair treatment; very cold

bulge, to stick out or swell
   
    
caldera, a crater caused by the collapse of the top of a volcano

canyon, a deep valley with steep sides and often a stream or river flowing through it (canyons)

catastrophe, a terrible, sudden event (catastrophes)

chemical weathering, a process that breaks down rocks by changing the minerals that they contain

climate, the average weather conditions of a particular area

clustered, grouped close together

coal, a dark, solid substance in the earth formed from plant fossils and used as fuel

collide, to crash together with strong force (colliding)

compact, to closely pack or press together (compacts, compacting)

conclude, to decide something or form an opinion based on information that you have (concluded, conclusion)

continental drift, a process in which continents slowly move over time on the surface of the earth

contract, to shrink slightly or get smaller

crater, a bowl-shaped opening at the top of a volcano or geyser

crust, Earth’s outermost layer, featuring a rocky surface
    
    
dense, thick or heavy (denser)

deposit, to put or leave something in a particular place; material laid down or left by a natural process (deposited, deposits)

descend, to move downward (descends)

detective, a person whose job is to find information about someone or something (detectives)

dissolved, mixed with liquid so that no solid pieces are visible anymore

distant, far away in time

dome mountains, mountains generally formed when magma pushes upward into Earth’s crust from the mantle and cools into igneous rock underground, causing the crust above it to bulge; usually occur as isolated mountains on otherwise flat plains

dormant volcano, a type of volcano that is considered active but hasn’t erupted for a very long time

drift, to slowly move with water, wind, or other natural processes (drifted)

durable, able to last a long time in good condition

dwelling, a place where someone lives (dwellings)
   
   
elder, a person who is older, respected, and often in a position of authority (elders)

entomb, to bury (entombed)

epicenter, the point on Earth’s surface directly above an earthquake’s focus

erosion, any process or force that moves sediments to new locations

erupt, to send out rock, lava, and ash in a sudden explosion (erupted, eruption)

eruption column, an enormous cloud of ash, bits of rock, and toxic gas produced by a volcanic eruption that can travel hundreds of feet per second

eternal, lasting forever, with no beginning and no end

evacuate, to remove people from a dangerous place

evidence, proof; information and facts that are helpful in forming a conclusion or supporting an idea

excavation, a hollowed-out place formed by digging or carving (excavations)

exert, to cause a force to be felt or have an effect (exerts)

expand, to get bigger

experiment, a scientific test to try out something in order to learn about it

extinct volcano, a type of volcano that has not erupted for at least 10,000 years (extinct volcanoes)

eyewitness, a person who has seen something happen and is able to describe it
    
   
fault, a crack in Earth’s crust (faults)

fault-block mountains, mountains formed when gigantic blocks of rock move up and down along faults

fine, very small

firsthand, coming directly from actually seeing or experiencing something

focus, the place in Earth’s crust where huge blocks of rock move along a fault, triggering an earthquake

fold mountains, mountains formed when rocks are pushed up into huge folds by moving tectonic plates

force, strength, power (forces)

fossil, the preserved remains of things that lived long ago (fossils)

foundation, the basis of something, the support upon which something else is built (foundations)
    
    
geologist, a scientist who studies the makeup of the earth and the forces and processes that shape and change it (geologists)

geyser, an underground hot spring that periodically erupts, shooting hot water and steam into the air (geysers)

granite, a common igneous rock that forms from magma that cooled within Earth’s crust
   
    
heave, to move up and down over and over; to lift, pull, push, or throw with a lot of effort

hoodoo, the tallest kind of pinnacle (hoodoos)

hotspot, a very hot region deep within Earth’s mantle where a huge magma chamber forms (hotspots)

hot spring, a naturally flowing source of hot water (hot springs)

hydrothermal vent, a deep-sea geyser that forms as seawater sinks down through cracks in the oceanic crust and then releases extremely hot, mineral-rich water back up through cracks in the crust (hydrothermal vents)

hypothesis, an idea that has been suggested and may be true but has not yet been proven
    
    
ice wedging, a process in which water alternately freezes and thaws and breaks rocks apart

igneous rock, rock that forms when magma cools and solidifies (igneous rocks)

inner core, Earth’s deepest layer, made of very hot, solid metal
    
    
lava, red-hot melted rock that has erupted above Earth’s crust from deep underground

limestone, a sedimentary rock often packed with the fossilized skeletons and shells of tiny ocean creatures that is commonly used for building

litter, to scatter in disorder (littered)

lofty, high up
    
    
magma, melted rock in Earth’s mantle

magnitude, an earthquake’s strength

mantle, Earth’s largest and thickest layer that consists of very hot, very dense rock

metamorphic rock, rock that forms when minerals in igneous, sedimentary, or older metamorphic rocks are changed due to extreme heat and pressure (metamorphic rocks)

mineral, a solid, nonliving substance found in the earth that makes up rocks (minerals)

moai, statues on Easter Island carved from tuff in the shape of partial human figures with large heads, high cheekbones, and heavy brows
   
    
observation, the act of paying careful attention to gather information; a statement based on paying careful attention to something (observations)

obsidian, a dark rock or natural glass formed from lava that cooled very quickly

ocean trench, a narrow, extremely deep valley formed when the seafloor dips down as one tectonic plate slides under another (ocean trenches)

offering, something that is presented as an act of worship (offerings)

outer core, the layer within Earth between the inner core and the mantle that is made of very hot, liquid metal

outsmart, to trick or defeat someone by being clever
   
    
panic, to be fearful in a sudden and overpowering way (panicked)

pepper, to sprinkle or cover

physical weathering, a process that breaks big rocks into smaller rocks without changing the minerals they contain

pinnacle, a slender, soaring rock formation made of tuff (pinnacles)

pinpoint, to figure out the exact location of something

plate tectonics, a theory that Earth’s crust and the solid top part of the mantle are broken up into sections that fit together but move against each other

plume, a column of magma that rises from the mantle into a chamber beneath Earth’s crust

porthole, a small, round window on the side of a ship, submersible, or aircraft (portholes)

pressure, the weight or force produced when something presses or pushes against something else

pyroclastic flow, a sort of avalanche of intensely hot ash, rock fragments, and volcanic gas that rolls quickly down the side of a volcano (pyroclastic flows)
    
    
revenge, the act of getting even for a wrongdoing

rock cycle, the continuous cycle in which rocks are created, destroyed, and recreated

rugged, having a rough, uneven surface
   
    
scald, to burn with very hot water or steam

school, a large number of ocean animals of one type swimming together (schools)

sea level, the average height of the ocean’s surface

seamount, an underwater volcano that forms wherever magma is erupting through oceanic crust (seamounts)

sediment, rock, sand, or dirt that has been carried to a place by water, wind, or other natural processes (sediments)

sedimentary rock, a rock that is made of sediments that have been naturally compacted and cemented together (sedimentary rocks)

seismic wave, a surge of energy traveling out from an earthquake’s source through the earth (seismic waves)

seismogram, the record a seismograph makes, showing seismic waves as jagged up-and-down lines

seismograph, an instrument used to track seismic waves traveling through the earth (seismographs)

sensor, an instrument that detects and measures changes, and then sends information to a controlling device (sensors)

sheer, very steep, almost straight up and down

sheet, a broad stretch of something (sheets)

silt, very small sediments deposited by water

solidify, to make or become hard or solid (solidifies)

state, the condition of being a solid, liquid, or gas

strong-willed, determined to do what you want even if other people tell you not to

subduction, a process in which a heavier oceanic plate slides under a lighter continental plate

subduction zone, the place where one tectonic plate is sliding beneath another tectonic plate (subduction zones)

submersible, a small vehicle that can travel deep under water for research (submersibles)

surge, to move forward quickly, suddenly, and with force (surges)
    
    
texture, the size, shape, and sorting of mineral grains in rocks

theory, an explanation for why something happens based on evidence

trigger, to cause something to start or happen (triggered)

tsunami, a gigantic wave of seawater caused by an earthquake in oceanic crust (tsunamis)

tuff, a type of volcanic rock formed from hardened volcanic ash
   
   
ultimately, finally; at the end of a process

underlie, to be located under something (underlies)

undertaking, something that someone takes on as a task or duty
   
   
volcano, a hill or mountain that forms over a crack in Earth’s crust from which lava erupts (volcanoes)
   
    
weather, to break down into smaller pieces (weathering)
   
     
+++++
   
   
Illustration Subtitles. 1570 CE world map. Fossils help provide information about the history of the earth. Discoveries of rock layers, as well as coal and salt, indicated that the continents had once been joined. Alfred Wegener. Journal of HMS Challenger. HMS Challenger. 200 million years ago. 30 million years ago. Present. Changes to the Earth’s surface according to Wegener’s theory of continental drift. Inner core. Outer core. Mantle. Crust. Continental crust. Trench. Ocean basin. Mid-ocean ridge. Rift valley. Seafloor spreading. Ocean floor. Oceanic crust. Mantle. Earth’s tectonic plates. Pacific Plate. Juan de Fuca Plate. Cocos Plate. Caribbean Plate. North American Plate. African Plate. South American Plate. Nazca Plate. Scotia Plate. Antarctic Plate. Eurasian Plate. Arabian Plate. Indo-Australian Plate. Philippine Sea Plate. Tectonic plates move apart. Tectonic plates collide. Tectonic plates slide sideways past one another. Francesco Petrarch. Locations of plate boundaries and past earthquake epicenters. A fault in Iceland. Effects of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Epicenter. Fault. Focus. The place in Earth’s crust where an earthquake begins is its focus. Its epicenter is the point on Earth’s surface directly above the focus. Modern seismograph. First known seismograph. Damage caused by earthquakes. The Mercalli scale is less scientific than the Richter scale. Lava. Magma chamber. Mauna Loa. Mount Fuji in Japan. Paricutin volcano in Mexico. Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia. Molokai. Maui. Island of Hawaii. Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. Rocks are all around. Some are carved into sculptures, others are used for jewelry. All the varieties of rocks can be organized into three classes. Igneous rocks. Spear tip. Arrowheads. Earth surface. Pressure from weight of rock layers. Metamorphic Rock. Heat. Molten rock. Agnes Nyanhongo. Sculptures carved from serpentine. Volcanic eruption. Igneous rock. Magma. Weather. Erosion. Sediments. Sedimentary rock. Metamorphic rock. Sediment depositing. Compaction and cementation. Examples of physical weathering. Delicate Arch, Arches National Park, Utah. Glaciers, like this one in Alaska, are powerful forces that can cause erosion. The Grand Canyon. India. The Indo-Australian Plate moved slowly northward, carrying India along with it. The Andes Mountains in Peru are fold mountains. Fault-block mountains form when blocks of rock move up and down along fault lines. The Grand Teton Mountains in Wyoming are fault-block mountains. Navajo Mountain, Utah. Seafloor spreading. Rising magma. Subduction zone. Mid-ocean ridges form a near-continuous chain of underwater mountains. Hydrothermal vents. Giant tube worms near a hydrothermal vent in the Pacific Ocean. Seamount that grew into an island. Deep-sea coral. Brittle star. Piccard and Walsh in Trieste. Rock houses in Cappadocia. Effects of volcanic rock erosion in Cappadocia. Fairy chimneys. Thor’s Hammer. Church in Cappadocia. Beautiful paintings cover the walls and ceilings of this church in Cappadocia. People entering an underground town. Hotel in a hillside of Cappadocia. Moai of Easter Island. Mount Vesuvius erupting. People living around the Bay of Naples must live with the threat of a Vesuvius eruption. Isle of Ischia. Isle of Procida. Miseno. Bay of Naples. Isle of Capri. Sorrento. Stabia. Naples. Herculaneum. Pompeii. Vesuvius. A Vesuvius eruption depicted in a wood engraving. Towering black cloud forms over Vesuvius. Darkness surrounds the erupting Vesuvius. Excavation activity at Pompeii. Clay jars unearthed from the ruins of Pompeii. Plinian eruption of ash, rock fragments, and volcanic gas. Alvin, one of three submersibles for Project FAMOUS. Project FAMOUS expedition begins. Alvin. Mussels, crabs, and shrimp live along hydrothermal vents. Communities of animals live off bacteria and bacteria-eaters around hydrothermal vents. Bacteria grows near hydrothermal vents.
     
   
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Lesson 15 – Suffixes 03: “-EST”

    
The suffix “-EST” means “comparative as the extreme example.” Examples: if you say “bigger,” then there may be another example that’s bigger still. But if you say “biggest,” then there is no other example that is bigger still. It is the “extreme” of that comparison. “Slowest” is “nothing else is slower.” “Tastiest” is “nothing else is tastier.” “Cutest” is “nothing else is cuter.” Etc…    
     
NEW WORDS: Alondra, Alvarez, Berger, Bernie, Chewbacca’s, Cora, Demont, Desiree, Dustin, Erica, Gary, Hailey, Hansen, Humphrey, Irma, Janis, Jazmin, Jeremy, Lanny, Lowery, McCall, McClain, McKay, Mueller, Munoz, Odom, Opry, Romero, Rowland, Rudie, Sherm, Stanton, Stewart, Strickland, Toronto’s, Trent, Valencia, Vazquez, achiest, acupuncture, airiest, angriest, baggiest, balmiest, bayou, beefiest, blandest, bleakest, boldest, boniest, briefest, broadest, buggiest, bumpiest, bushiest, chewiest, clearest, cockiest, comedians, corniest, coziest, crispiest, crudest, cruelest, curliest, cushiest, cutest, dampest, decker, dehumidifier, dingiest, direst, dizziest, eeriest, evilest, fattiest, fiercest, fishiest, fizziest, flattest, foamiest, foggiest, foulest, frailest, frankest, fraternity, freshest, fullest, funkiest, fussiest, gaudiest, gauntest, germiest, glummest, goofiest, gooiest, goriest, grossest, gruffest, hairiest, handiest, hastiest, haziest, hilliest, hokiest, iciest, itchiest, juiciest, lamest, laziest, leanest, lottery, luckiest, lumpiest, lushest, messiest, mintiest, muddiest, murkiest, nastiest, noblest, nosiest, oddest, poisoning, puniest, purest, saddest, shyest, sickest, slowest, sorest, suffixes, tamest, tidiest, vomiting, weightlifter, zaniest     
   
   

Mr. Hansen had the glummest look on his face as he announced his resignation.
     
My fitness-nut friend Alondra is now the leanest that she’s been in 10 years.
   
Mom, the dog ran through the muddiest spot on the field.
   
This road’s your shortest route, but it’s also the bumpiest.
    
In one of her frankest statements, the Senator called the proposed bill “stupid.”
    
We use only the freshest ingredients in our restaurant.
   
This brand of toothpaste has the mintiest flavor.
    
Mrs. Berger served us the lumpiest mashed potatoes that I’ve ever eaten.
   
President Alvarez said, “The hastiest decision is often the worst one.”
   
This is the coziest fire that I could ask for.
   
With the evilest of intentions, Dr. McCall set his devious plan into motion.   
   
Erica is the nosiest person in our office.
    
This new show is the zaniest comedy in decades.
   
Chewbacca’s the hairiest creature conceived of in film.   
   
Put the dehumidifier in the dampest room in the house.
   
On the foggiest day of the year, there were lots of auto accidents.
   
For your character in the play, put on the baggiest pants that you can find.
   
Why is this the iciest window in the house?
   
We’re standing in front of the murkiest water in this lake. 
   
The oddest way that my skin has ever felt was in my first appointment for acupuncture.

Mrs. Vazquez said that I had the puniest excuse ever for not turning in my homework.
   
The eeriest place that I’ve been was on a small fishing boat, at night, in the bayou.
   
The “triple decker” is the fattiest burger on the menu.
   
The handiest tool that one can have is a Swiss Army Knife.
   
Of your three summer job offers, this one looks like the cushiest.
   
Dad said that the sickest he’d ever been was from a case of food poisoning.
   
Bernie is the slowest runner in the class.
   
These next few miles are the flattest part of the county.
   
Mom, make me the foamiest bubble bath that you can.
   
Dustin will be the sorest guy on the team after all of those tackles that he took.
   
Get ready; this is the goriest scene in the movie.
   
We use only the purest mountain water in making our brand of beer.
   
The hokiest movie that I’ve seen is “Dumb And Dumber.”
   
Not that one, Mom; that’s the itchiest sweater that I own.
   
The grossest scene in the film is when everyone starts vomiting.
   
Dr. Lowery said that I had the nastiest cut that he’d seen in years.
   
Among the group of evil beings, the boniest hands belonged to the witch.
     
Janis, this is the tidiest that I’ve ever seen your bedroom!
   
The buggiest time of day here is about 6:00 PM.
   
Zookeeper Romero said, “Even the tamest lion can kill you!”

Irma has the curliest hair in our school.
   
That weightlifter has the broadest shoulders in the gym.
   
On the clearest days, you can see Toronto’s skyline from this far away.
   
Gary has the bushiest hair; it almost feels like steel wool.
   
Whew, that’s the angriest that I’ve ever seen Coach Odom.
   
The foulest stench wafted up from the sewer.
   
The saddest moment of the game was when Jeremy dropped the football in the end zone.
    
That’s the lamest excuse that I’ve ever heard!
    
This is the achiest that I’ve felt since I had that flu bug eight years ago.
   
His closet is full of the dingiest clothes known to mankind.
    
How about a challenge; of these four hiking trails, let’s go for the hilliest one.
   
Don’t go in there; it’s the germiest room in the building.
   
The dizziest that I’ve ever been was looking down from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
   
These are the crispiest tortilla chips that one could ask for.
    
Lanny, the new guy in our office, tells the crudest jokes.
   
The secret agent, Mueller, found himself in the direst of situations.
   
Jazmin is just the cutest baby!
   
When you choose our summer vacation home, rent the airiest one that you can find.
   
This awful cut of meat is the chewiest that I’ve ever run into.
    
Mrs. Munoz, our science teacher, explained why yesterday was the haziest day of the year.

Hailey is the cockiest med student I’ve ever encountered.
   
Mrs. Rowland wore the gaudiest hat to the Derby.
   
Cora, since your tummy hurts, I’m going to fix the blandest meal that I can come up with.
   
Today’s the bleakest day of winter, so far.
   
The fiercest icy winds cut to your core like a razor.
   
The boldest shot of the basketball game was from half-court, and it was a swish!
   
The gruffest teacher in our school is Mr. McClain.
   
For the briefest of moments, I could have sworn that I was looking at a UFO.
   
The luckiest kids in the city get into our school via a lottery.
     
Of our three kitties, Humphrey is our fussiest.
    
Mrs. Strickland is the frailest person in our nursing home.
   
Yum, this is the juiciest peach ever!
   
Stanton Park is the lushest one in the city.   
   
The funkiest music always makes me want to dance.
    
Sir Stewart is the noblest of the King’s knights.
   
Rudie is the messiest eater in the cafeteria.

Mrs. Valencia says that we should all live life to the fullest.
   
Great job Mom; this is the gooiest slime that you’ve ever concocted.
   
The weatherman said that today’s balmiest weather in the U.S. is in South Florida.
   
Sherm plays the cruelest jokes on his fraternity-mates.
    
Trent is the laziest guy in our office.
   
Desiree is the shyest girl in our class.
     
During the goofiest scene in the movie, I just couldn’t stop laughing.
    
Demont isn’t the beefiest guy in the gym, but he’s still the strongest.
     
While Mr. McKay gave his testimony, he had the fishiest look on his face.
   
The gauntest prisoner-of-war had been in solitary confinement for a year.
     
That’s the fizziest water that I’ve ever made with my Soda Stream.
    
The comedians at the Grand Ole Opry often tell the corniest jokes.

    
   
*********

Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
   

The American Revolution – Road To Independence

Lesson 16 – Part One

    
NEW WORDS: Bostonians, Dawes, Georgians, Hancock’s, Irishman, Montreal, Parker’s, Paul’s, Phillis, Prescott, Wheatley, Wheatleys, angst, antinomy, assemblies, barre, befit, brews, clime, coffins, crossfire, crown’d, delineation, docked, dunk, dunked, emerges, essays, establishments, ev’ry, grievances, gummed, gutsy, heav’ns, imports, impressions, inns, mastermind, militiamen, militias, num’rous, outraged, pamphlets, protestors, stockpiling, unavoidable, unsympathetic, volley, warship     
       
    

Chapter One: Bills to Pay
   
The Big Question: Why did the British tax the colonists? And why did that make them mad?
   
Let’s head back in time. It’s 1754 through 1763. The Brits fought the French. It was a war on soil in the New World. It was called “the French and Indian War.” It was a part of a big war. It was about countries that wished to get land and wealth. In this war, the Brits fought the French. Who would get more land in the New World?
   
In this war, lots of Native Americans chose sides. Some fought with the Brits. Some fought with the French. Battles were won and lost on both sides. There was a turning point. There was a battle fought in a part of Canada. It was land that the French called their own.
   
In 1759, British troops sailed up the St. Lawrence River. They fought at the French city of Quebec. The Brits won this one. They then went on to take Montreal the next year. That city’s fall was the end of large fights between the French and British. Some fights went on till 1763. The Treaty of Paris was signed. It closed down this war.
   
France now had to give up most of the land that they had claimed in the New World. They gave this land to the Brits. But with new land came new burdens. Lots of these were about cash.

Taxes
   
The Brits had to get loans to fight this war. Why had a lot of that cash been spent? It was to save the settlers from the French and their friends. All of the cash had to be paid back. And the Brits felt that the settlers should pay their share.
   
How did the Brits raise the funds? They raised new taxes. These would have to be paid by the settlers. In 1765, King George III called for the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was a tax on things that were printed. Folks had to buy stamps when they bought things in print. These could be newspapers. They could be pamphlets or decks of cards. These were not gummed stamps. They were impressions. They were imprinted or embossed on paper. Lots of folks were mad about the Stamp Act. They thought that it was not fair. How could the king slam dunk such a tax? They had to pay them. But they had no say in this!
   
The Brits had, so far, let the colonies raise taxes on their own. So, what if Virginia had need of cash? A group of representatives from parts of their region would meet. This group was called the “House of Burgesses.” They would come up with the best way to raise cash. They would come up with taxes. And they would vote. What if lots of their folks thought that these were not fair? They would just not vote for them. So, the taxes would not be raised. This House had reps from lots of parts of Virginia. So, most of the folks felt that this was fair.
   
Each colony had a group like the House of Burgesses. They were not all called the same thing. But they did the same thing. A group of reps met to talk through new laws and tax needs.
   
The colonists would raise their own taxes even past 1765. They felt that the king should have asked these groups to find a way to raise the cash that was needed. But that’s not how it went. There was no back and forth talk. The king just slam dunked the Stamp Act. Parliament ruled on it, not the New World assemblies.
   
The colonists knew that there were bills that had to be paid. And they wished to do their part. But they wished, too, to have some say in how the cash was raised. They did not like that these tax acts were made 1000s of miles from their own shores. And they did not like that Parliament ruled with no reps from the New World. This did not seem fair to them.

There were regions outside of England who had reps in Parliament. Scotland was one of these. Their job was to stand up for the rights of folks from Scotland. But there were no reps from the 13 colonies. Not one!
   
So, the Stamp Act ticked off the settlers. They showed their anger in varied ways. They held protests. They wrote pamphlets. They sent letters to London. They tried to state why they thought that the Stamp Act was not fair.
   
Lots of the colonists were proud British subjects. But they felt that they had rights, too. The king should not take these rights from them. Antinomy to the Stamp Act spread.
   
In Virginia, let’s see what the Burgesses did. They passed a motion to fight the Stamp Act. They said that the Brits had no right to tax Virginians.
   
   
Prime Minister Grenville
   
In 1765, England’s prime minister was George Grenville. He was the mastermind of the Stamp Act. He was faced with a big test. He had to raise cash to pay for the 1,000s of British troops who were in the New World. He felt that those troops were there to help out. So, it was only right that the colonists should help pay for the troops. At first, the Brits were stunned by the colonists’ response to the Stamp Act. Grenville was unsympathetic to the complaints and protests. But he did not have lots of support. Other government ministers were not with him. He was fired in 1766.

A Leader Emerges
   
George Washington fought in the French and Indian War with the Brits. He served as a major. He led a group of troops against the French in the Ohio River Valley. He led a mission against a French scouting party. Things went quite well for him. Thus, he was promoted to colonel. He was now the head of a group of troops from Virginia and North Carolina. His next mission did go as well. But he had now made a name for himself. He was seen as a gutsy leader. In 1755, he was made the leader of all the Virginia militiamen. He joined the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1758.

Chapter Two: Trouble Brews
   
The Big Question: Who were the Sons of Liberty. And what form of protest did they lead in Boston Harbor?
   
Where were some of the big Stamp Act protests? They took place in Boston. There, crowds took things out on tax collectors. A new group formed there. The group met next to a tree. They called it the “Liberty Tree.” They gave talks against taxes and the Brits. They cried, “No taxation without representation!” This group was now known as the “Sons of Liberty.”
   
Time passed. There were lots of protests. They worked! The Brits took back the Stamp Act in 1766. They got rid of the tax on paper goods. But they did not stay the course for long. In 1767, they replaced the Stamp Act with new taxes on imports. Tea stood out as one of the goods that riled folks up the most. The new tax plan was called the “Townshend Acts.”
   
Lots of folks loved tea. That’s just as it was in England. But lots of folks said that they would not buy British tea. That was if they had to pay a tax that was not fair. And they thought that the new tax on tea was just as unfair as the old tax on paper. Plus, the new tax had been raised by the same Parliament. And there were still no reps from the 13 colonies there! Now, to take a sip of tea meant more than just having a drink. If you bought British tea, you had paid a tax. So, to take that sip was like you thought that they had the right to tax you! But what if you would not now buy British tea? You would make a huge point. You’d show that you did not approve of – and would not accept – taxation without representation. Those who were mad due to the new tax would now NOT buy British tea. But they did not just stop there. They went to inns and other places that sold tea. They asked the owners to stop the sale of it. Lots of establishments said that they would boycott British tea!

Debates and protests went on. There were lots of these in Boston. In 1768, the Brits took action. Here was their response to these protests. They sent troops to Boston! That was to keep an eye on the Sons of Liberty. These troops wore red outfits. So, they were called the “redcoats.” And one nickname was the “lobster backs.”
   
In March 1770, a few Bostonians got into a fight with a redcoat. They circled the soldier. They called him names. They threw snowballs at him. Some of the crowd even threatened him with sticks and clubs. More British troops came to the scene. They yelled, “Go home, all of you!” But the protestors would not leave. The scene got more tense, fast. More folks poured into the streets. Soon a crowd of 300 folks pressed in on the outnumbered British troops.
   
Some of the crowd yelled shouts at the troops. They dared them to fire their guns. One of the crowd threw something at the troops. It may have been a snowball. It may have been a rock. It hit one of the men. It knocked him down. This man might have thought that his life was at risk. So, he fired his gun. One of the crowd fought back. He fought the soldier with a club. With that, all of the troops joined in the fray. They fired into the crowd. When it was all done, five were dead.
   
The Sons of Liberty were outraged. They made speeches about the fray. It was now known as the “Boston Massacre.” They claimed that the Bostonians were there to protest in peace. The Brits had no right to fire on them. One of the Sons of Liberty was a man named Paul Revere. He created an engraving. It showed British troops who fired into a crowd of peaceful protestors. It was not a fully accurate delineation of what had gone on. But lots of folks thought that it was.

The World’s Largest Tea Party
   
In December 1773, once more, there was a tense event in Boston. There were three ships full of tea. They were docked in the bay. The captains had been told to unload the tea. Then it could be sold in Boston. The Sons of Liberty would not let this go on. They had spent a lot of time to get folks not to buy or sell British tea. There was no way that they would let the captains unload all of that tea. The Sons of Liberty told them to raise anchor and sail off.
   
The captains were not sure what to do. So, they did not do a thing. The ships just sat there. Well, the Sons of Liberty took things into their own hands. They would get rid of the tea once and for all. They dressed as Native Americans. They – and others from the patriot group – went on board the ships. They threw the tea into the harbor. They dumped out some 340 chests of tea. That was worth 100s of 1000s of dollars in today’s cash! This act came to be known as the “Boston Tea Party.”

Phillis Wheatley
   
When the Stamp Act was killed, lots of folks were quite glad about it. Some folks wrote essays, letters, and songs. That was to give their thanks. Let’s meet Phillis Wheatley. She wrote a poem. She was an African slave. She’d been brought to Massachusetts on a slave ship. She had gone to work in the home of a merchant. He was named John Wheatley. The Wheatleys taught her to read and write. At one point, she began to write poems. A book of her poems was published in 1773. Her poem to King George was one of her best-known works:

   
To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, 1768
   
YOUR subjects hope, dread Sire,

The crown upon your brows may flourish long,

And that your arm may in your God be strong!

Oh, may your scepter num’rous nations sway,

And all with love and readiness obey!

But how shall we the British king reward!

Rule thou in peace, our father, and our lord!

Midst the remembrance of thy favors past,

The meanest peasants most admire the last,

May George, beloved by all the nations round,

Live with heav’ns choicest constant blessings crown’d!

Great God, direct, and guard him from on high,

And from his head let ev’ry evil fly!

And may each clime with equal gladness see,

A monarch’s smile can set his subjects free!
   
   
Crispus Attucks
  
Crispus Attucks was one of those killed at the “massacre.” He was part African and part Native American. He was a slave, too. But at the time of the massacre, he was a sailor. In the midst of the crossfire, he was shot in the chest. He died on the spot. Four more died, as well, due to that event in Boston. On the day of the funerals, lots of shops closed. Thousands of folks filed through the streets of Boston. They followed the victims’ coffins. Attucks and the others were now heroes.

The Sons of Liberty
   
The Sons of Liberty was made up of small business owners. Among them were merchants and tradesmen. The group got its name from an Irishman. His name was Isaac Barre. Barre was a soldier and a politician. He spoke out in Parliament. He did not like some of the things that were done to the colonies. Like George Washington, Barre had fought in the French and Indian War. He was there when the French lost. That was at the Battle of Quebec. He was opposed to the taxes that were being placed on the colonists. He made one speech where he called the colonists “Sons of Liberty.” The name inspired some of the protests that took place. The group has been known as the Sons of Liberty since then.

Chapter Three: The Fight Starts
   
The Big Question: What was the Revolutionary War? And what caused it?
   
News of the Boston Tea Party spread. The news reached the Brits in 1774. They were shocked. The government was ticked off. They would now have to punish Boston. They wrote a group of new laws. There was the Boston Port Act. Now, the harbor would have to stay closed. The colonists were told that they must pay for the tea that had been dumped into the bay. No ships could come in or leave without an okay by the British.
   
There was much angst due to these new laws. How could they make a living? Now, goods could not be shipped in or out of Boston. How would they get a fair trial if they were sent to courts across the ocean? And how could they trust the government? All of the leaders were placed there by the king. These new laws were called “the Intolerable Acts.” They would not stand for them!
   
News did not move fast back then. But folks in all of the colonies heard of what was going on in Boston. They were now scared. Some were mad, too. They thought that the same thing could happen to them! Twelve of the 13 colonies sent reps to meet in Philadelphia. It was known as the “First Continental Congress.” It met in September 1774. Of the 13 colonies, Georgia was the one that did not come.

Complaints and Grievances
   
There were 56 reps at this “Congress.” They were to draft a list of complaints and issues. These were to be against the king and his government. All 13 colonies would now stop to import goods from England. This was not just for tea and other things that were taxed. This was for ALL British goods. And they made a second threat to the Brits. This was if they would not kill the Intolerable Acts. They would then stop to send colonial goods to England, as well! These threats were a big deal, for sure!
   
Some thought that a war was unavoidable. They thought that it was time to start stockpiling things for a war. These would be things like muskets and gunpowder. But some thought that it was still not too late. Could they still patch things up with England?
   
Reps from Virginia talked of this in March 1775. A few reps said that Virginia should do what it could to keep the peace. They should try to bring back good relations with the king. But lots of folks felt that it was too late for that. A lawyer named Patrick Henry had his thoughts heard. He said that it was time to stop the talk about peace. It was time to start to fight for freedom. And he had strong words about this:
   
“Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace! But there is no peace. The war is already begun! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take. But as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
   
Lots of folks were with Henry on this. They built militias. They stocked up on guns. They wished to be prepped to fight. Some of the militiamen were known as “minutemen.” These troops were there to be prepped to fight at a minute’s notice!
   
The British knew of these goings-on. So, they sent a large group of troops to Boston. Their generals were told to take all weapons that they could find. They were told, too, to arrest the big troublemakers. Among the Sons of Liberty, these were Samuel Adams and John Hancock.
   
In April 1775, the British tried to take some weapons. Some folks from the patriot group had been told to hide them in Concord. That was west of Boston. Some 700 British troops marched out of Boston. This was on the night of April 18. They hoped to sneak up on the militia in Concord. But the patriots were on watch for each move that the Brits made.

The Night Rider
   
One of the men who kept an eye on the British was Paul Revere. He had heard that the British troops were prepped to march out to Concord. He knew that there were just two ways to get there from Boston. One was to march there on foot. The other was to cross the Charles River in boats. Then they’d march the rest of the way. They could not know which way the Brits would go, till they set out. Paul came up with a smart plan. He told a friend to hang lanterns in a belfry. That would be in the North Church in Boston. What if the troops left Boston on foot? Paul’s friend was to hang one light. What if they had set off in boats? The friend was to hang two lights.
   
It was the night of April 18, 1775. Paul’s friend ran up to the belfry. He hung two lanterns. Then, Paul and others jumped into action. Paul got into a rowboat. He rowed across the Charles River. He slipped right past a British warship! He made it across. Then he jumped on a horse and set off. He was on the same road that the troops would take. Paul and other riders rode through the night. With them were men like William Dawes and Samuel Prescott. They woke up the sleeping colonists.
   
Revere is well-known for the cry, “The British are coming!” But he did not speak those words. And, for sure, he did not yell them into the dark night. It is believed that it’s more likely that he quietly warned folks. His words may have been, “The regulars are coming out!” Revere did not make it to Concord that night. But he did ride to Lexington. There, he warned Samuel Adams and John Hancock. They were wanted by the British. So, they were in hiding there.
   
What Revere and other riders did was legendary. The folks who lived on that road knew that the British troops were on the way to Concord. Hundreds of minutemen grabbed their guns. They prepped to fight for their homeland.
   
This painting of Revere’s ride was painted more than 100 years after the night of April 18, 1775. The scene that’s shown is not a true account of what took place. But it does show how tense things were that took place that night.

The Shot Heard ‘Round the World
   
It was April 19, 1775. Here we are in Lexington. That’s a town on the road to Concord. Eighty militiamen lined up. They had their guns with them. Now, they had not planned to fire on the Brits. A war had not been declared yet. Still, they knew that there was a chance that a fight might break out. And they wished to be prepped if it did.
   
The Brits were now near them. John Parker was the head of the Lexington militia. He told his men, “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired on. But if they mean to have a war, let it start right here.”
   
A British officer told the armed men to go home. He may have said, “Lay down your arms, you rebels!” But as the militiamen turned to go, a shot rang out. Who fired that shot? Even now, no one knows for sure. The British troops thought that the militiamen fired it. But Parker and his men said that they did not. The shot may have been fired by someone who was not part of Parker’s group. He might have fired it into the air to sound an alarm. In any case, the troops thought that they were under attack. They fired a volley. In seconds, guns flashed and smoked on both sides. Seven of the militia were killed right there that day. Nine more had wounds. Just one British soldier was wounded. And no Brit died at that spot. But more fights would break out that night!
   
Next, the British troops marched on to Concord. They searched the town. They found a few cannons. They found some musket balls. By this time, word of the fight had spread fast. Hundreds of men made their way to Concord. They were ready to fight. One troop of militiamen met the regulars. This was on the outskirts of Concord at North Bridge. The British fired. The militiamen fired back.
   
Soon the British leader marched his troops back to Boston. But as the British troops made their way back, militiamen shot at them. They were hidden behind trees and stone walls. They fired on the British troops, one or two at a time. The British did make it back to Boston that night. But 73 of their troops had been killed. And 174 more had been wounded. As for the colonists, 49 had died and 39 had been wounded. The colonists had stood up to the British. And the British had failed to get to Samuel Adams and John Hancock. There was no going back now. The Revolutionary War had begun!

Georgia Stays Home
   
Georgia was the only colony that did not send reps to the “Congress” that had been held. Now, Georgians did not like the British trade regulations. But lots of them did not want to join the revolutionary path that had emerged in the colonies. Lots of Georgians thought that they had done well under royal rule.
    
     
Two Very Important Patriots
   
Samuel Adams
   
In 1765, Samuel Adams joined the Massachusetts assembly. He was the leader of those opposed to the Brits. He had been a rep to the First and Second Continental Congress. While there, he had fought for colonial independence. Adams was Harvard-educated. But he was not part of the social elite who would often hold government jobs at the time. A few of Adams’s friends helped to give him a gentlemanly look. That would befit a political leader of the time. Let’s turn to his first trip to the Congress. One friend gave him cash to help him with his expenses. And another gave him the outfit that he wore to the meeting.
   
   
John Hancock
   
John Hancock’s name tops the list of those who signed the Declaration of Independence. His prominent signature is well-known to one who has seen an image of that document. Hancock was a rich Boston merchant. And he was a patriot leader of the American Revolution. After the Boston Massacre in 1770, he was one of the committee members chosen to go to the governor. There, he would ask for the exit of British troops from the city. He was at the funeral of Crispus Attucks and the other dead. He made a speech that led to an order for his arrest.

   
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
   

The American Revolution – Road To Independence

Lesson 17 – Part Two

    
NEW WORDS: Abigail, Albigence, Armistead, Augustin, Benedict, Bett, Bonhomme, Brandywine, Draper, Framingham, Friedrich, Gerhard, Germain, Germantown, Hessian, Hessians, Lafayette, Lafayette’s, Ludolf, Matthews, O’Hara, Paine, Sampson, Saratoga, Serapis, Shurtlief, Steuben, Steuben’s, Tadeusz, Trenton, Von, Wilhelm, advocated, ambassadors, bayonets, bestseller, breed’s, bunker, captive, cased, casualties, chagrined, comrades, convoy, dawned, decisive, defeats, defiant, disperse, fatigues, firecake, firepower, foiled, heroine, heroines, hitherto, ideals, indicating, indisposition, jeers, missives, outsmarting, pamphlet, pewter, platoon, postal, quartermaster, recaptured, regulated, reinforcements, schoolteacher, signatures, solicitude, starvation, sullen, tactics, thatcher, tweaks, unacceptable, untrained
   
   

Chapter Four: Shots and Speeches
   
The Big Question: Shots were fired in Massachusetts. And speeches were made in Pennsylvania. What did the colonists do as a result of all of this?
   
What a difference a day makes! By the time the sun came up on April 20, 1775, so much had happened. The British troops had to fall back from Concord. They’d gone back to Boston. They had more than 200 casualties. They were now circled by militia. Things went from bad to worse. The militia set up cannons on two hills. These were above Boston Harbor. One of the hills was called Breed’s Hill. The other was Bunker Hill.
   
The British generals did not like this. The cannons up on the hills might fire on their ships. They might sink some of them. So, they knew that they had to drive them off of the hills.
   
It would take time to put their plan into place. But they did, two months later, on June 17, 1775. They launched an attack. Hundreds of redcoats marched up Breed’s Hill. The militiamen at the top of the hill had to wait. Their nerves were on end. There was a leader named William Prescott. He knew that his men did not have much firepower. They would have to make each shot count.
   
They had to wait, and wait, and wait. At last, they could fire. Scores of British troops fell to the ground. They were forced to back off. The Brits marched a second time. This time, too, they were held back. They came a third time. This time they had success. The militia had run out of firepower. Now they had to back off.
   
This is known as the Battle of Bunker Hill. That is a strange name, though. It was fought on Breed’s Hill! This might have been an error. The two hills are near each other. And we know that a British officer had mapped the site. He had mixed them up on his map! Or maybe Prescott had been told to to strengthen Bunker Hill. But he went to Breed’s Hill when he saw that it was the best spot.
   
In one sense, this fight was a win for the Brits. They reached their goal. They drove the militia off of the hill. But in one way, it felt more like a loss. How can it be a win if 1,000 men are killed and wounded? And that’s compared to 500 on the other side? The British knew that they could not afford to lose troops at this high of a rate.

The Making of a Government
   
There was a Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. It took place while the Battle of Bunker Hill raged. 56 reps from all 13 colonies came to this. Thomas Jefferson came north. He was a rep from Virginia. John Adams, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock made their way south. They came from Massachusetts. Benjamin Franklin was a native of Boston. But he lived in Philadelphia at that time. So, he did not have to go far to get there.
   
Months of talks and debates went on. Some decisions were made. Lots of these were based on a strong belief. That was that there could be no peace with England. This Congress began to act as if they were a government. They made key decisions. They issued paper money. They set up a postal service. They named generals and ambassadors. They had to build an army. And they put George Washington in charge of it. This would soon be called the “Continental Army.”
   
Lots of folks at this Congress thought that a key time had come. The colonies must declare their independence. They wished to be a new nation. But some thought that there might still be a way to patch things up with the Brits. They wished to try to do so. These reps at the Congress were not the only ones who were divided over this thought of independence. All through the colonies, there were folks on both sides.

A Little Common Sense
   
One man played a big part in all of this talk. He worked to change folks’ minds. He got lots of folks to go for independence. He was Thomas Paine. Paine was an Englishman. He had moved to Philadelphia just a few months back. Benjamin Franklin convinced him to come. Franklin thought that Paine could help the patriot movement. He wrote a pamphlet called “Common Sense.” It was published in January 1776. That’s while the Second Congress was meeting.
   
Paine thought that monarchy was a bad way to run a country. “Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation,” Paine wrote. So, how could any one man claim the right to rule over millions?
   
Paine said that the colonies should split from England. They should form a republic. This would be a government made up of elected reps. He told his new countrymen that they had a huge chance. They could cast off rule by kings. They could replace it with something much better. “We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us. We can form the noblest, purest constitution on the face of the Earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. The birthday of a new world is at hand. For God’s sake, let us come to a final separation.”
   
“Common Sense” became a bestseller. Copies were printed in all 13 colonies. Parts of it were printed in papers. Those who could read studied the pamphlet. Those who could not read could listen. That was when it was read out loud at a place like an inn. This turned lots of folks around. They changed their minds. It was, in fact, time to declare independence.

A Final Separation
   
By June 1776, most folks in the Congress wished to take a vote. This was what Paine called “a final separation.” Thomas Jefferson, a rep from Virginia, was asked to help. He was to write a formal Declaration of Independence. His job was to tell why the colonies wished to break from England. He had to tell why they had to do this.
   
Benjamin Franklin and John Adams looked at Jefferson’s draft. They made a few tweaks. But they liked Jefferson’s work a lot. It was now July 2, 1776. Those in the Second Continental Congress voted for independence. On July 4, 1776, they had one more vote. This time the vote was about Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. Would it be the document that told of the reasons for their wish to be independent. No one had a vote against it. One colony, New York, abstained. The Declaration of Independence was approved!
   
Here’s what’s found in the first part of the Declaration. Jefferson wrote ideals that he and his comrades thought to be true:
  
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
   
Jefferson thought that the role of government is to protect these rights. But what if a government failed to protect these rights? What if it took the rights back from them? Then the people had the right to rebel. Then they would set up a new government.
   
Jefferson said that this was what the British had done. The last half of the Declaration was not the same. Jefferson had a long list of unacceptable actions that the British had taken. They had raised taxes that were not fair. They had taken away the right to trial by jury. They had placed British troops in colonial cities. This list proved that the colonists had no other choice. They had to declare independence from Great England.

Happy Birthday to Us!
   
Ever since 1776, the Fourth of July has been a national holiday in the U.S. On this day each year, Americans celebrate their freedom. They watch fireworks. They sing patriotic songs. They have picnics and parades. Though it took one more month to get all the signatures on the Declaration of Independence, Americans still celebrate Independence Day on July 4.
   
    
No Simple Solution
   
The colonists did not start out with a national army prepped to fight on their behalf. The Continental Army, as such, did not yet exist. In June 1775, the Congress asked George Washington to build such an army. Till then, the army had been just a loosely planned bunch of militia groups from New England. It was not clear what would go on after the Lexington and Concord fights. Yes, there had been lots of outrage. But it took more than a year for independence to be declared. After the fights in Lexington and Concord, some patriots had created a flag. They called it “The Continental Colors.” It had the red and white stripes from the Sons of Liberty flag. There was an image of the British Union Jack on it. That was indicating some bit of continued loyalty to the British government.

Chapter Five: It’s War!
   
The Big Question: It was the start of the war between the British and the colonists. Who seemed best set up to win the war? And why?
   
It was the start of the war. The Brits thought that they could win it. The Continental Army, at least at first, was not a strong force. It was made up of farmers and tradesmen. These folks knew how to shoot. But they did not know how to march or fight in formation. They had few cannons. They had few ships. At the same time, the British army and navy were strong. They were huge. And they may have been the best trained in the world. The Brits had more troops. They had more cannons and ships. And they had much more know-how. And the Brits had a good plan. They thought that it would help them to win the war. They would split the colonies in half. They’d then fight them on two fronts.

Crossing the Delaware
   
The Brits had moved back from Boston. They then looked more to New York City. They saw the value of this port city. They wished to take it. But Washington wished to keep control of New York, too. He marched his troops there to fight the Brit troops.
   
It was the summer of 1776. The two armies fought on Long Island and Manhattan Island. Washington and his men failed to hold on to New York. The Brits took it. By November 1776, Washington fell back along the Hudson River. He then took his troops to New Jersey. He knew that his men were just not as strong as the British men. He did not want to take on the Brits in a key fight. He knew that he would lose. He would have to look for a chance to fight when his foes were not ready for it.
   
On December 25, 1776, that is just what he did. It was Christmas night. There were Hessian troops. They were camped in Trenton, New Jersey. They had been on round-the-clock watch for more than a week. They were quite tired. On this night, they would get some sleep. They did not think that a fight would break out. Thus, lots of them had laid down their arms.
   
Washington started in Pennsylvania. From there, he crossed the Delaware River. They snuck up on the Hessians. More than 1,000 of them were forced to give up in the sneak attack.
   
This win was good for the morale of the troops. But soon they would face a string of defeats. They lost at the Battle of Brandywine. That was in September 1777. Then they lost at the Battle of Germantown. That was in October. There, some of the troops in the Army were confused. They fired on their own troops. These losses did not help their cause. Now, the Brits could take Philadelphia. The Congress was forced to break up. They had to move to a new place.
   
Up north, a British group marched down from Canada. They recaptured Fort Ticonderoga. They closed in on the Continental Army that fought in this region. The Army was in a bad state. It was time to fall back. It was time to change their plans. But the Brits were right on their heels!

Outsmarting the Enemy
   
The Continental Army had need of a good plan, too. They had some luck. A man named Tadeusz Kosciuszko had such a plan. He was a Polish engineer. He had joined the colonists in their fight. He shared some things that the Army might use to slow down the Brits.
   
He told the troops to cut down trees. Then let them fall across roads as they fell back. They took down bridges. They built dams so that rivers would overflow onto the roads.
   
These tactics gave the troops more time. They could then plan for a strong defense near Saratoga, New York. Kosciuszko played a key role in that, too. He told them of the best spots to build forts. This kept the Brits from moving south to Albany. He then taught the troops how to build walls for a strong defense.
   
In September 1777, the Brits attacked the forts near Saratoga. They could not break through the new defenses. On October 17, the British gave up. More than 6,000 British soldiers had to hand over their arms. The Battle of Saratoga was the first huge win for the Continental Army!
   
In December 1777, Washington and his tired men limped into a town called Valley Forge. They would spend the winter there. In those days, fights were scaled back in the winter. At this time, the troops had to face a new foe. That was Mother Nature.
   
She was not kind to them in the winter of 1777 to 1778. It was an ice-cold winter. The troops were not prepped for this. Most of them did not have winter coats. Lots of them did not have shoes. Their feet left bloody footprints in the snow.
   
In December and January, the troops cut down trees. They used them to build log cabins. These gave them some shelter from the cold. But they were crowded and damp.

There were more problems. The troops did not have much to eat. They had to hang in there for weeks on “firecake.” This was a mix of flour and water. It was baked on a fire. It had no taste. Once in a while, they might have a bowl of pepper pot soup. This was a thin broth. It was made from beef and a few peppercorns.
   
Clean water to drink was in short supply, too. Lots of the troops drank bad water. They got quite sick. A few died of frostbite or starvation. Lots more died from disease.
   
One surgeon was named Albigence Waldo. He was from Connecticut. He kept notes while in Valley Forge. He wrote this:
   
“December 14. The Army had been surprisingly healthy hitherto. But it now begins to grow sickly from the continued fatigues that they have suffered this campaign. I am sick, discontented, and out of humor. Why are we sent here to starve and freeze?”
   
Washington knew that the state of his troops was not good. On December 23, 1777, he wrote a note to the Congress. He said that lots of his men were in poor health. He said that they were not fit to fight. He said that things were quite bad. He wrote that he feared that his men might give up and go home:
   
“I am now convinced, beyond a doubt, that unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place, this Army must inevitably be reduced to one or other of these three things. Starve, dissolve, or disperse. We have no less than 2,898 men now in camp. They are unfit for duty because they are bare foot and otherwise naked.”
   
The New Year dawned in 1778. Things looked bleak for the troops. But the tide was about to turn in their favor.

Chapter Six: From Valley Forge to Yorktown
   
The Big Question: What country from Europe joined the Continental Army to fight the Brits? And how did their help change the outcome of the war?
   
There’s a saying. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” The winter of 1777 to 1778 was a tough time for the Army. Those who made it through that time felt blessed. They came to think that they were so strong that they could make it through anything!
   
In February 1778, the French joined the war. They would fight to help the Army. France was a long-time foe of England. So, they were glad to have the chance to help the colonists in their fight with the Brits. This was good news. France had a strong, well-trained military. With the French now engaged, that meant that big help was on the way!
   
Let’s turn to late February. We’ll meet a man with a strong German accent. He’d just shown up in Valley Forge. His name was Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin Von Steuben. Why had he come? We’ll look back to the past summer. Von Steuben had gone to Paris. He’d offered his help to the Count de St. Germain. He was the French Minister of War. St. Germain had seen that Von Steuben’s military know-how was strong. So, he sent him across the ocean to meet Washington. Washington, too, liked him. He asked Von Steuben to train his troops. There was just one blip. Von Steuben knew just a few words of English. So, he’d shout his words in German. Then someone would translate the words to English.
   
Von Steuben taught the troops how to march. He showed them how to stand in formation. He taught them how to advance on the field of battle. He taught them how to use the bayonets that were on their muskets. He trained a model company. Then, those from this company trained others.
   
It was the spring of 1778. Things began to improve. Washington sent out foraging groups. They would get cows, horses, corn, hay, and grains from the locals. They came back with food to feed the troops. He put in place a new quartermaster. His job was to make sure that the troops did not run out of food or supplies. And, last but not least, he got the Congress to send more cash. They helped to recruit more troops, too.
   
The Army marched out of Valley Forge in June 1778. They were now prepped to fight as an army. The now-trained Army began to win more fights. Their first decisive win came in the fall of 1781. At this point, much of the fight had moved to the south. More now went on in Virginia and the Carolinas. British troops in the south were led by Lord Cornwallis.

The Beginning of the End
   
In August 1781, Cornwallis and his men had camped at Yorktown. This was at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. That was in Virginia. They were there to wait for reinforcements and supplies.
   
At the same time, Washington met with a few French generals. This took place near New York City. The French had sent 1000s of troops to help. Now they had to plan for how to best use these new troops. Should they take on the Brits up north? That would be in New York. Or should they head south? They might take on Cornwallis there. That would be in Virginia.
   
They made their call. They’d march the main Army and most of the French troops south. They’d try to trap Cornwallis there. But Washington was crafty. He sent out fake missives. He wished to make the Brits think that he would fight in New York. The Brits were fooled by these notes.
   
In late September, Washington got to Yorktown with lots of troops. There were 4,000 French troops. There were 3,000 Continental troops. There was a Major General of the Continental Army. He was the Marquis de Lafayette, from France. These new troops backed up Lafayette’s men. He already had troops there. The French navy came, as well. Right at the start, they drove away a convoy of British ships. Those ships had supplies for Cornwallis and his men. At this stage, Cornwallis knew that he was in a bad state. He was cornered by the French and Continental armies. And the French navy had cut off his escape route. And they had cut off his supplies!
   
The French and Continental armies set up cannons. They fired on the Brits. For days, the guns fired on and on. Washington told them to fire through the night. That way, the Brits would not have any time to rest or to make repairs.
   
Cornwallis and his men could not save themselves. And the French fleet was in a strong place. The Brits could not sail off. October 19, 1781 was a big day. Cornwallis knew that he had no choice. He had to give up.

Thousands of folks who lived near there came out to watch the surrender. The Army lined up on one side of the road. The French were on the other side. At 2:00 PM, the British marched between the lines of French and Continental troops. James Thatcher of Massachusetts was there. He wrote this:
   
“It was about 2:00 when the captive army advanced through the line formed for their reception. Every eye was prepared to gaze on Lord Cornwallis. He was the object of peculiar interest and solicitude. But he disappointed our anxious expectations. Pretending indisposition, he made General O’Hara his substitute as the leader of his army. This officer was followed by the conquered troops in a slow and solemn step, with shouldered arms, colors cased, and drums beating a British march.”
   
O’Hara surrendered. Then the British troops had to ground their arms. More than 7,000 British troops laid down their guns. Of course, as Thatcher said, lots of them were not glad about this:
   
“Some of the platoon officers appeared to be exceedingly chagrined when giving the word ‘ground arms.’ Many of the troops manifested a sullen temper. They threw their arms on the pile with violence, as if determined to render them useless.”
   
There were some small fights for a while after Yorktown. But the Brits soon knew that they could not keep up the fight. 6,000 troops had given up at Saratoga. 7,000 had left the field of battle at Yorktown. The British government did not have the cash that it would cost to replace those troops. Lots of British folks had grown tired of the war, too. In September 1783, the Brits signed a peace treaty. It was called the Treaty of Paris. The Revolutionary War was over. The colonists had won their independence. And a new nation was born!

The Marquis de Lafayette
   
The Marquis de Lafayette was one of the first from Europe to help the colonists in their fight for freedom. He said that he would help to fight the Brits. But he was told that no one could pay him. He said that he’d serve with no pay. The King of France did not want Lafayette, a nobleman, to go off to war. But Lafayette was stubborn. He did not care if he went against the king’s wishes! He went so far as to buy a ship to take him to North America. He was just 19 years old when he got there. He was one of the top generals in the Continental Army.

Chapter Seven: Heroes and Villains
   
The Big Question: In what ways did folks prove to be heroes of the Revolution?
   
Each war has its good guys and bad guys. This war was like that, too. As the war went on, a sense of patriotism grew. Lots of folks wished to stand up and fight for their country.
   
One of the key heroes on the colonists’ side was George Washington. He was commander-in-chief of the Continental Army through the whole war. He took charge not long past the fights at Lexington and Concord in 1775. He made it through the bleak winter of 1777 to 1778 at Valley Forge. He was still in charge when the Army had its huge win at Yorktown in 1781.
   
   
Helping Hands
   
There were heroes from other countries, too. Kościuszko was from Poland. He helped the Army win at Saratoga. Von Steuben was a German. He helped to turn untrained farmers into a disciplined, well-regulated army. The Marquis de Lafayette was from France. He helped to win at Yorktown.
   
One hero was a Scottish sea captain. His name was John Paul Jones. Jones went to live in the colonies. The war broke out. He made the call to fight on the side of his adopted homeland. In 1779, he led his ship, the Bonhomme Richard. They were in a fight with the British ship Serapis. The Bonhomme Richard had 42 guns. The Serapis had 50 guns. For a while, the two ships would float right next to each other. There would be blast after blast. At one point, a British sailor gave a yell to Jones. He asked him if he would give up.
   
“Give up?” Jones yelled back. “I have not yet begun to fight!” In the end, it was the British captain who gave up. The tale of this win – with Jones’s defiant reply – was printed in newspapers. John Paul Jones was now a hero.
   
Nathan Hale was a schoolteacher from Connecticut. He was a hero in a fresh, but sad, way. In 1776, he said that he’d help by going on a tough mission. He would sneak behind British lines in New York City. He would spy on the Brits who were there. But Hale was caught. The British said that he must be hanged. Before he died, says a legend, Hale said this. “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

Unsung Heroes
   
Saul Matthews was an African in the Army. He served as a soldier in Virginia. His name may be less known now than some of the others. But he was a hero in his own right. He was a good spy. He gave key facts about British troop positions. Colonel Josiah Parker commissioned Matthews. He had him go on spy trips in British camps.
   
Let’s meet a new hero. This was James Lafayette Armistead. He was asked to be a servant to Lord Cornwallis. This was to spy on him! At some point, Cornwallis asked Armistead to be a spy. He said that he would do it. But Cornwallis did not know that Armistead was at work for the colonial side. He passed along key facts to the Continental Army. He gave useless facts to Cornwallis.
   
Peter Salem was a freed slave. He had fought in the fights at Concord and Lexington. He fought at Bunker Hill, too. Salem went on to join the Fifth Massachusetts Regiment. He served in the Army for seven years. Few soldiers served for that length of time. He was thought to be a war hero. So, in 1882, a monument was erected in Framingham, Massachusetts, in his honor.
   
There were also lots of heroines through the war. Washington’s wife, Martha, was one of them. She spent lots of time at Valley Forge. She helped make clothes for the troops. And she helped to take care of the sick.
   
Abigail Adams was a heroine. She was the wife of John Adams. She raised their children and managed their farm. But she also housed and fed Continental troops. Mrs. Adams was known to write to her spouse. He was one of the key reps in the Congress. In these notes, she advocated for women’s rights. She thought that woman should get a good education. She also let him know that she was opposed to slavery.
   
At the time, most folks thought that to be in the army was a job just for men. Some women could serve in the army. They could take jobs such as nursing, cooking, and searching for food. They could even help to bury the dead. But women who tried to join up to fight could not. Some women disguised themselves as men, though.
   
Deborah Sampson was one of them. She signed up and used the name Robert Shurtlief. She served for a year and a half. She fought in a few skirmishes. In one of them, she was wounded. Two musket balls lodged in her thigh. She took out one of the balls. But the other was lodged too deep to be removed. But her wound healed. She thus made it through the war. After the war, Sampson was noted by John Hancock. He called her out for showing “an extraordinary instance of female heroism.”

There was another woman, Mary Draper. She fed and clothed troops as they marched through her town. But she went so far as to melt down the pewter dishes that she owned. That way, the metal could be used to make bullets.
   
Still other women were heroes. They got that way by standing up for what they thought was right. There is the story of Mum Bett. She was a slave. It seems that Mum Bett may have heard her master one day. He read the Massachusetts State Constitution out loud. Bett thought about the words that she heard. “All men are born free and equal.” She thought that the words meant that she had a right to be equal, and even free. She found a lawyer. He did not like slavery. She got him to take her case. She won the lawsuit! In 1781, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ruled on the case. They said that Mum Bett could not be held as a slave. She took on a new name. She was now Elizabeth Freeman. Her case was one of lots of things that helped lead to the end of slavery in that state.
   
    
From Hero to Villain
   
Benedict Arnold was a hero – at first. But he went on to be more of a villain. He was one of the top Army generals at the Battle of Saratoga. He was praised after the win there. But he did not want to join with the French in 1778. He thought that the colonists had traded one foe for another.
   
In 1780, Arnold made a plan. He would give up the fort at West Point in New York to the Brits. His plan was foiled. He then joined the British army. He went on to fight for the Brits. The cheers for Arnold the hero turned to jeers for Arnold the traitor.

   
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
   

The American Revolution – Road To Independence

Lesson 18 – Part Three

    
NEW WORDS: Blarenberghe, Brom, Bummel, Campbell, Catskill, Catskills, Cunne, Dunmore, Dunsmore, Emanuel, Ichabod, Irving, Leutze’s, Mather’s, Mohican, Mohicans, Moran, Nicolas, Shote, Trumbull, Vedder, aborted, abound, abstain, adumbrations, affections, affright, agog, allurement, ambassador, apotheosized, artillery, assuasive, attested, attired, augustly, backside, badgering, bayonet, becharming, bereft, betrays, breech, brooding, buffed, burrs, casualty, caved, ceded, chevalier, commanding, complaining, consternation, countrified, crane’s, crepuscular, crooning, defends, delicacy, depressing, descendent, diableries, disapproval, dismissed, doleful, donated, dozy, drivel, dubious, eccentric, eidolon, embittered, enchanting, entranced, entrancement, eves, flavorous, forebode, furrow, gambado, ghoul, gobblers, grasshopper’s, grizzled, habitudes, hauntings, headless, heed, henpecked, hobgoblins, hollers, homeward, hoodwinker, hooted, horsemanship, hurled, imagery, imaginings, immobilized, implying, imponderable, importing, inaccurate, incessant, indirectly, inheritance, innards, jeer, jolted, languor, lanky, levied, loader, lodgment, loyalist, malformed, memento, misgivings, moil, mortification, muzzle, necklet, ninepins, offbeat, onlookers, opulent, outmoded, overexcited, overlarge, oxidized, peals, petition, phantasmic, porkers, praxis, pre, presences, promenade, prompted, provoked, puzzlement, quaver, quickened, quill, ramrod, ravine, rawboned, recitation, reclusive, recoil, regalement, regiments, respired, rip’s, riposte, rounds, schnozzle, scuttlebutt, sentience, shenanigans, skepticism, skirmish, slouch, slumberland, smirked, solitude, speculation, splendor, sponging, stirrups, strath, subsided, suitor, suitors, tabard, tankards, tarries, tassel’s, thundery, tyrannical, uneasiness, unison, unplanned, untrue, wooing, wooly, yawped, yokemates     
      
   

Chapter Eight: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
   
(From the tale by Washington Irving)
   
The Big Question: Why do folks think that a headless horseman haunts the town of Sleepy Hollow?
   
We’re not far from the east shore of the Hudson River. It’s a wee strath. It’s known as Sleepy Hollow. A dozy, diaphanous feel hangs over the place. It’s as if it were swayed by some kind of entrancement. The place is full of tales. There are thought to be spots of hauntings. There is talk of crepuscular diableries. But there is a well-known eidolon that tarries there. It haunts the place. It is the sight of a phantasmic man. He’s on the back of a horse. And he does not have a head! It is said to be the ghost of a Hessian soldier. His head was shot off by a cannonball. It was at the time of the Revolutionary War. The ghost is said to ride out each night. It goes to the scene of the fight. He’s in search of his head. He then heads back to the yard of the church. That’s right as the sun comes up.
   
In this out-of-the-way place, there lived a teacher. His name was Ichabod Crane. His name was well-suited to him. He was tall and quite lanky. His shoulders were not wide. He had long arms and legs. He had hands that hung a mile out of his sleeves. He had overlarge ears. He had large green eyes. And he had quite a long schnozzle. What was it like to see him stride about on a day with lots of wind? His clothes would quaver about him. One might think that he was a scarecrow.
   
Let’s say that you’re near his school. You could hear his pupils in recitation of their lessons. Here and there, they were aborted by the voice of the master. Or one might hear the sound of his switch.
   
There was a praxis for how a town hired a teacher back then. Crane was boarded and lodged. This was at the homes of the farmers whose kids he taught. He lived in each home a week at a time. When he came to a home, it was quite a big deal. You see, the ladies thought his taste and know-how to be better than those of the rough, countrified farmers. He had read lots of books. He was a master of Cotton Mather’s “History of New England Witchcraft.” He had firm thoughts that there WERE witches. Crane would sit in the school. That’s when the kids had left. He’d read old Mather’s book till dusk. Then, he would made his way back to his lodgment. Each sound of nature would work at his overexcited imaginings.

He loved to pass long winter eves with the farmers’ yokemates. They would sit by the fire knitting. He liked to hear their tales of ghosts and hobgoblins. And they would talk of the horseman with no head. But there was a cost to his joy in all of this. And that was the affright of his walk home. What shapes and adumbrations jumped through his path! How much did he forebode to look past his shoulder. He might catch a glimpse of some ghost close by him!
   
Katrina Van Tassel was the sole child of a rich farmer. She found favor in Crane’s eyes. This was not just for her allurement. She had a vast inheritance, too. Her father was an opulent farmer. And his barn was filled with the fruits of his moil. Buffed porkers would grunt in their pens. Regiments of gobblers would promenade through the farmyard. Crane’s mouth would drivel. In his mind, he had imagery of each pig roasted with an apple in its mouth. He would think of each turkey wearing a necklet of tasty sausages. He would cast his eyes on the trees that bore much fruit. He would think of the wealth that was around him. So, he set out to win the affections of the farmer’s daughter.
   
Well, he was not the sole suitor near here. His main “foe” was a local chevalier known as Brom Bones. He was a large young man. He was famed for his horsemanship. And he was always primed for a fight – or for some shenanigans. When some gambado would occur near there, the folks said that Brom Bones must have been the hoodwinker.
   
Brom Bones began to woo Katrina. Most other suitors then gave up the chase. Crane hoped that he might get Katrina to wed him. He was thus quite glad one day. He had an invite to come to a party at Van Tassel’s home. That day came. He let out his pupils an hour early. He brushed his old black suit. He fussed over the way that he looked. He borrowed a horse. That way, he could get there augustly mounted. The horse was old and rawboned. His mane was knotted with burrs. And he was blind in one eye. Crane was just the right man for such a steed. His elbows stuck out like a grasshopper’s. And as he rode, his arms flapped like a pair of wings.

Here’s what he saw when he got there. Lots of folks from the region were there at Van Tassel’s. Lots of cute young women stood side-by-side. But what caught Crane’s gaze the most? Well, it was the sight of a table piled high with food! There were sweet cakes and short cakes. There were ginger cakes and honey cakes. There were roasted chickens. He peered at slices of glazed ham and smoked beef. There were apple and peach and pumpkin pies. There were flavorous dishes of preserved plums. Crane tried each delicacy. He smirked to think that he might one day be lord of all this splendor.
   
Ichabod danced proudly with Katrina. His loosely hung frame clattered about the room. Brom Bones just sat brooding by himself off to the side. The regalement began to break up. Crane stayed there. He wished to have a wee talk with Katrina. He thought that he was now on the high road to success. But his talk did not go well. Not at all! Soon, he left with an embittered sentience. He went straight to the stable. He gave a few hearty kicks to the old horse. Then he galloped off into the night.
   
It was the becharming time of night. As Crane rode, all of the ghost tales that he’d heard through the years now came to mind. The night grew pitch dark. The stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky. He had never felt so bereft. A splash by the bridge caught his ear. In the dark, he saw a huge sight. It was malformed, black, and towering. The hair on his head rose. “Who’s there?” he cried in fear. There was no riposte.
   
The imponderable object put itself in motion. Crane saw it bound into the middle of the road. It looked to be a large horseman. He was mounted on a black horse. Crane quickened his pace. He hoped to leave this horseman far back. The ghoul sped up to the same pace. The reason for the silence of this figure was soon clear.
   
Crane looked hard at this man. He was a giant in height. He was muffled in a tabard. Crane was now horror-struck to note that he was headless! The ghoul held his head in front of him on his saddle. In fright, Crane rained kicks on his horse. The ghost followed closely. Off the two dashed. Stones flew from the ground.

Crane cast a fearful look back of him. He hoped to see if he had escaped the horseman. But that’s not what he saw. He saw the horseman rise up in his stirrups. He hurled his head at Ichabod. Crane tried to dodge the missile. But he was too late. It hit his own head! There was a huge crash. He tumbled into the dust. The rider then passed by like a huge gust of wind.
   
Let’s turn to the next morning. Crane’s old horse was found. It grazed near the home where Crane had been staying. The pupils came to the school. But no schoolmaster showed up. By the river, they found the hat of poor Crane. Close to it there was a smashed pumpkin.
   
There was much scuttlebutt and speculation about Crane. Where had he gone to? Some said that he’d been carried off by the headless horseman. Some said that he’d left in mortification since he did not get Katrina to be his wife. Not soon after this, Brom Bones was wed to Katrina. When the tale of Ichabod was told, Bones had a dubious look about him. But the old country wives claim to this day that Crane was spirited away. It is said that one may still hear his voice. He’ll be crooning a tune in the solitude of Sleepy Hollow.
   

About the Author:
   
Washington Irving wrote “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” He was one of the first American writers to be known in Europe. He is best known for his short stories. But he did write a biography of George Washington. And he served as a U.S. ambassador to Spain!

Chapter Nine: Rip Van Winkle
   
(From the tale by Washington Irving)
   
The Big Question: How does Irving weave in fact AND fiction in “Rip Van Winkle?”
   
We head to a town in the Catskill Mountains. That’s in New York State. There lived a good-natured man. His name was Rip Van Winkle. He was a kind friend. The kids would shout with joy when they saw him. Rip had a nice soul. He thought of others more than he thought of himself. Now, he did not do well with his own farm. And his kids were not clean. It was like they did not have a mom or dad.
   
Rip was a glad fool. He lived with no cares. He ate white bread or brown. He picked the one that was less work. He would starve on a penny. And he would not work for a pound. If it was left up to him, he would just laze all day long. He had no stress. But he had a tough wife. She was a nag, all the time. She called him a slouch. She said that he brought ruin to the family. Rip would shrug. He’d shake his head. He’d cast up his eyes. But he would not say a thing. This provoked a fresh nag from his wife each time. So, he’d just leave the house. He’d go out and take a walk.
   
Rip used to console himself when he had to leave the house. He’d meet with a group of men who he liked. They would meet on a bench in front of an inn. Above them was a portrait of King George III. They talked of the town news. And they told wild tales. A newspaper might show up. They could not read. So, they would hear Van Bummel talk. He was the school teacher. He would read out-loud its contents. This would get folks to talk a lot about what they had heard. There was an old man in the town. He was named Nicholas Vedder. He made his thoughts known. You could tell how he felt by the way that he smoked his pipe. Short puffs meant that he was mad. When he was pleased, it was not the same. He breathed in the smoke slowly. Then he let it out in light, puffed clouds.
   
One day, Rip sought to get out of the hard work of the farm. And he wished to get far from his wife’s incessant badgering. So, Rip grabbed his gun. He walked to the Catskills. He wished to hunt for game. All day, the hills would pop with the sound of shots fired from his gun. At last, he sat down on a wee green hill. It looked down into the vale below. Rip loved the scene. Of course, it would start to get dark now. He now thought of his trip home.

He was about to head down. But he heard a voice. It called, “Rip Van Winkle!” He caught sight of a strange man. He climbed up the rocks. He had something on his back. Rip was jolted to see a man in this reclusive place. But he thought that it must be one of his friends. They might be in need of help. So, Rip ran down to help. The man was quite short. He had a grizzled beard. His clothes were outmoded. He held on to a stout keg. Rip thought that it must be full of something good to drink. The man made signs for Rip to help him. Both of them climbed up a tight furrow. Now and then, long rolling peals came out of a deep ravine. The sound was thundery. They passed through it. They came to a hollow.
   
He looked at the center. There was a conclave of odd folks. They played at ninepins. Rip now knew what the noise was that he had heard. It was the sound of the ball that ran to the pins. Like Rip’s guide, they were attired in an eccentric way. They had huge breeches. And part of what seemed odd to Rip was that these folks looked quite stern. They played. They did not speak. In fact, they were the most doleful group that he had yet seen in his life. They eyed Rip in such a way that his heart turned within him. And his knees banged each other.
   
Rip and his guide joined the group. His guide poured the keg into large tankards. The men sipped with no sounds made. When they were done, they went back to their game. Rip’s fear subsided. He took a taste of the drink, too. Soon, the events of the day and the mountain air immobilized Rip. He fell into a deep languor.
   
Rip woke up from this deep sleep. He found that he was on the green hill where he had first seen the old man. It was a bright morn. The sun was out. Rip thought, “I can’t have been in slumberland here all night.” He thought of the strange men. “Oh, my! And what shall I tell Dame Van Winkle?” He looked for his gun. But he found just an old, oxidized firearm. Had he been robbed? He went to look for the offbeat men and to ask for his gun back. As he rose to walk, he found that he was stiff in the joints. It took him a while. But he found the gully up which he and his strange friend had gone. But he could find no memento of the ravine that had led to the place with the men who played ninepins. He had a heart full of uneasiness. And he now turned his steps homeward.

He walked to his town. He saw a few folks. But he knew none of them. This was quite odd. He thought that he knew all of the folks in the town. Their dress, too, was of a new look. They all stared at him. They stroked their chins. Rip did the same. And he found to his consternation that his beard had grown a foot long! A troop of kids ran at his heels. They hooted after him. They pointed at his gray beard. There were homes in the town that he had not seen before. There were names on the doors that he did not know. He thought, “Am I and the world about me entranced?!”
   
It took a bit of time, but he found his own house. The roof had caved in. The door was off its hinges. He went in and called for his wife and kids. But there was no sound. He saw a dog that looked like his own. He called out to him. But the dog snarled and showed his teeth. “My own dog does not know me,” respired poor Rip.
   
He went to the inn. In front of it now hung a flag with stars and stripes. He thought that he could spot the face of King George on the sign. But there was a change. Now his red coat was blue, not red. His head wore a cocked hat. And beneath the face was printed “GENERAL WASHINGTON.” There was a crowd of folks at the door. But Rip knew none of them. He asked, “Where’s Nicholas Vedder?”
   
No one spoke up. Then an old man asked, “Nick Vedder? Why, he is dead and gone these 18 years!”
   
“Where’s Van Bummel, the school teacher?” asked Rip.
   
“He went off to the wars. And he is now in Congress,” the old man said.
   
Rip’s heart sank when he heard of this sad news. “I don’t know who I am,” he said. “I was myself last night. But I went to sleep. Now things have changed. And I can’t tell who I am!”
   
The onlookers looked at each other in puzzlement. Then a young lass pressed through the throng. She had a child in her arms. The child was scared by the gray-bearded man’s looks. He cried. “Hush, Rip,” she said. “The old man won’t hurt you.”

The name of the child – and the air of the mom – brought long lost thoughts to Rip’s mind. He caught the mom in his arms. He yawped, “This can’t be. I’m your pa! I was young Rip Van Winkle once. But I’m old Rip now! Does no one here know poor Rip Van Winkle?”
   
All stood agog for a bit. Then an old woman yelled, “For sure! It IS Rip Van Winkle! You’ve come home, old man! Why, where have you been these 20 years?”
   
Rip’s tale was soon told. Of course, the whole 20 years had been to him but one night. For lots of the folks, there was much skepticism. But he WAS an old man who was well-versed in the local habitudes. For some, this was assuasive enough. He attested to the group that the Catskills had for all time been haunted by strange presences. His own dad had once seen these odd wee men as they played ninepins in the hollers.
   
Rip’s daughter took him home to live with her. (Her mom had died some years back.) Now, Rip was at that happy age when a man can retire and rest. So, Rip took his place once more on the bench at the inn. He was apotheosized as one of the wise, old men of the town. He used to tell his tale to each stranger who came through the town. Some had misgivings about the truth of it. But the old townsfolk now gave Rip full credence.
   
So, to this day, when a storm blows in, they say that the odd wee men are at their game of ninepins. And this is a shared wish of all henpecked husbands in the town. When life hangs heavy on their hands, they wish that they might take themselves up to the Catskills in search of an adventure.

Enrichment One: Points of View
   
Let’s say that you live in England. It’s the 1770s. You’ll read the newspaper. You read of protests in Boston. The folks there are mad about taxes. You don’t get why there’s all of this fuss. You pay your taxes. Why won’t they just calm down and pay theirs? It’s just part of life, right? Then you hear of the Boston Tea Party. You have your point of view. You think that the Sons of Liberty and like patriots have done bad things. What gives them the right to dump tea? It is not theirs! You feel like these blowhards are just thieves. They ought to be arrested. They should be thrown in jail.
   
Now let’s see this from the other side. You’re from Boston. You don’t like the new taxes. And one of the folks killed at the Boston Massacre was a friend of yours. There are troops with muskets all over town. They watch you. How do the same events look now? They don’t look the same, do they? You may see the Sons of Liberty as good guys. They fight against an unjust king. They fight against a harsh government.
   
Let’s try the same thing once more. But this time let’s see how things might look if your religious point of view has changed. You live in Virginia. You’re a part of the Church of England. You go to church each Sunday. You try to do what the pastor says is right. You’re a loyalist. You’ve been taught that you should be loyal to the king and to the government. So how can you support the rebellion in the colonies?
   
Now change your point of view once more. You live in Massachusetts. You’re a descendent of the Puritans. They built that colony. You go to a Christian church on Sundays, too. But you’re not a part of the Church of England. Your church is independent. It broke from the Church of England many years past. Your church does not say that you must be loyal to the king. In fact, your church was founded by men who stood up to kings. Some of your kin stood up to King Charles I in the 1640s. And their children and grandchildren stood up to King James II in the 1680s. Does it seem wrong to you to stand up to King George III? Not at all. In fact, it seems like just the right thing to do! You think that each citizen has a right to stand up to an unjust king. And this is not just a right. It’s a duty!

Now let’s say that your ancestors did not come to the colonies from Europe. You are an enslaved African. You’re a person from Africa brought against your will on a slave ship. As a slave, what might be your point of view? Which side would you be on in the Revolutionary War? Would you side with the patriots? Your wish for freedom was no part of their mission! Why would you side with them?!
   
The Revolution was about taxes and self-government. It was not about freeing the slaves. It was not about ending slavery. In fact, Thomas Jefferson and lots of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence owned slaves. They said things about “unalienable rights,” like “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But lots of them did not expect their thoughts to be applied to slaves.
   
Despite this, some African-Americans saw things from the colonists’ point of view. Thus, they joined the fight. Crispus Attucks, the sailor who was killed in the Boston Massacre, is a prime example. So was Phillis Wheatley, the poet. She opposed the Stamp Act. And at the start of the war, she wrote a poem for Washington. In it, she told of her hope that Washington and the Army would soon beat the Brits.
   
There were African-American troops, too. African-American militiamen fought at Lexington and Concord. There were African-Americans at the fights at Bunker Hill and Yorktown, too.
   
But some African-Americans fought for the Brits. In November 1775, let’s turn to Lord Dunmore. He was the loyalist Governor of Virginia. He gave a speech. He said that each slave who ran off and joined the British army would be set free. Lots of them did run off. And they served in the British army. Some of these soldiers wore a patch on their uniform. It read “Liberty to Slaves.”

Native Americans had their own varied points of view, too. It’s wrong to think of Native Americans as just one group. Each tribe had its own leaders, its own history, and its own customs.
   
At the start of the war, colonists tried to get Native Americans not to be in the war. In fact, the 2nd Congress sent a note to six nations of native people. This asked them to stay out of the war.
   
Some Native Americans took this to heart. They stayed neutral. But some would side with the Brits. Lots of these tribes had fought against the colonists themselves. They thought that the Brits might help get the settlers to not move west. In fact, the British did pass such a law. It forbade the colonists from moving west of the Appalachians. They were to stay on the East Coast. If this law were enforced, it could be a good thing for Native Americans. It could stop the westward movements of the colonists. That might mean that the native people could stay on their land. That is one reason that Native Americans, such as the Cherokee, fought for the Brits.
   
Some native tribes would side with the colonists. The Mohican, who lived in western Massachusetts, are one of them. They had fought with the colonists in the French and Indian War. And they fought with the colonists again in the American Revolution. Mohicans fought with Washington’s troops when he circled the British in Boston. They served in the army that won at Saratoga, too.
   
The events of the American Revolution were amazing. People from varied cultures, varied occupations, and varied views were all part of it. They would change the course of history. A new nation was formed. And, in less than 200 years, it would be the strongest nation in the world!

Enrichment Two: Artillery Training
   
“Men! Welcome to the 3rd Continental Artillery Regiment! You’re under the command of Colonel Crane. I am Sergeant Campbell. You’re here to learn to fire a six-pound field cannon. That’s the one that you see in front of you.
   
“This cannon is not like the musket your father taught you to fire back on the farm. It fires a six-pound cannonball. It has a maximum range of 2,000 yards. That’s a bit more than a mile! But you’ll want to fire with accuracy. So, you’ll want to pick a target that’s no more than 1,000 yards from where you stand.
   
“This cannon has wheels on it. Thus, it can be wheeled around on the field of battle. That is why we call it a field cannon. To fire it, you’ll need to work with each other. You’ll be in teams of seven. Each of you will have a job. I’ll tell you what you must do. Are you ready to nail this?”
   
“Yes, sir,” the men yelled.
   
“I can’t hear you!” barked the sergeant.
   
“YES, SIR!” the men shouted as loudly as they could.
   
“That’s more like it. Now men, what you see in front of you is a muzzle-loading cannon. That means that the cannonball is put in at the muzzle end of the cannon. It does NOT go in the breech end. This is the muzzle end. And this is the breech end,” said the sergeant. He pointed first at the front – and then at the back of the cannon.
   
“At this point, you might think that it would be fine to talk about ‘the front of the cannon’ and ‘the back of the cannon.’ But don’t do that. A skilled artillery man does not speak of the front or the back of the cannon. He speaks of ‘the muzzle’ or ‘the breech.’ So, what is this end called?” Campbell quizzed the men as he pointed to the front of the cannon.
   
“The muzzle!” said the men in unison.
   
“That’s right,” barked the sergeant. “And this end?” he bellowed. He pointed at the other end.
   
“The breech!” yelled the men.
   
“Good. Now is this cannon a muzzle-loader or a breech-loader?”
   
“A muzzle-loader, sir!” yelled the men.
   
“Yes! This is a muzzle-loader. It means that the cannonball is placed in at the muzzle end of the weapon,” said Campbell. ” But there’s one more thing that needs to be placed in the cannon first. That’s before the cannonball goes in. Do you know what that is?” asked the sergeant. Some hands shot up. “Yes?” asked Campbell.
   
“The powder?” said one of the soldiers.

“Right!” Campbell retorted. “Men, there’s no point in putting a cannonball in unless you have first put in a charge of gunpowder. The powder is going to go off behind the cannonball. And the force of the burst will send the ball flying out of the cannon. But the powder has to be behind the cannonball. So, it has to go in first. But before we add the powder, we must clean the cannon. And to do that we need this item here. Do you know what this is called?” he asked.
   
No one spoke.
   
“This is called the sponge,” added Campbell. “Say it after me. The sponge!”
   
“The sponge!” the soldiers cried.
   
“The sponge is the wooly part on top here. It was donated by a patriotic sheep. General Washington and I thank her for her devotion to the colonial cause. The sponge is attached to this pole. The pole is about 10 feet long. That will let you to reach down inside the cannon. You can then clean parts that you could not reach without it.”
   
“It’s key that you clean out the cannon. If you don’t, there could be sparks in the pipe. Bits of paper or gunpowder might still be burning. That would be from the last time that you fired the gun. And let me tell you this. You do NOT want to stuff a new charge of gunpowder into the cannon if there is still fire in the pipe. That will put a speedy end to your war service! Do I make myself clear? So, always dip the sponge in a pail of water. Then clean out the cannon.”
   
The soldiers nodded their heads.
   
Campbell went on, “Next, use this thing here. It’s the mop. It will dry out the innards of the cannon. If it’s too wet in the cannon, the gunpowder will not detonate. You don’t want fire in the pipe. But you don’t want it soaking wet, either. After sponging and mopping, you’re ready to put in the main charge of powder. You may be using a charge that has been measured and packed for you. Or you may have to pack the right bit of loose powder on your own. Now, we’ll use a pre-packed charge. Use this tool, a ramrod. You’ll use it to drive the charge all the way down to the back of the cannon. See?”

Campbell wiped sweat from his brow. “Only then can you insert the cannonball. Once more, use the ramrod to make sure that it’s pressed all the way down. Ram it down, like this. Then once the cannon is loaded, it must be aimed. This is a messy thing to have to do. I will talk of that tomorrow. For now, let’s just say that the higher you point the cannon, the farther the ball will go. That’s at least till you get it tilted at a 45 degree angle. As I said, that’s for the next day.”
   
“Now let’s move from the muzzle end to the breech end. Do you see this small hole at the breech end of the gun?” he prompted. Again, the soldiers nodded. It’s called the touch hole. Sometimes we might call it the vent. This is where you’ll light the powder and fire the gun. First, you need to puncture the charge. In order to fire the cannon, you must poke a hole in the charge of powder that you stuffed into it. See this small poker? Stick it into the touch hole. Then poke a hole in the charge. That way, some of the gunpowder is exposed.”
   
“After you’ve got a hole in the charge, you must pour a bit more gunpowder into the touch hole. This is a tricky task. Go slow! Make sure that you don’t spill some of it. Haste makes waste. And the army does not have enough gunpowder to waste any of it.”
   
“Here’s the last step. Insert a quill fuse that’s filled with gunpowder. A quill fuse, as you can see, is just a feather. It’s from a liberty-loving goose that has been filled with powder. Once the quill has been put in, you must call out ‘PRIMED!’ That means that the gun has been loaded. It’s now ready to fire.”
   
“Then wait for your commanding officer to call out, ‘GIVE FIRE!’ When he does, you’ll touch the quill with a long match. Then, stand back! And don’t stand here, behind the gun, because the cannon will recoil. If you’re standing at the breech end, it may well knock you on your backside. Once you touch the match to the quill, BOOM! The cannonball will sail out at the redcoats. It will teach them new respect for the Continental Army.”
   
“Well, men, that ends your first artillery lesson. I know that it’s a lot to learn. But have a few days of training and some practice. You WILL catch on. And, with a bit more practice, you can fire up to a hundred rounds a day.” With that, Sergeant Campbell saluted the soldiers. He marched away and yelled, “Dismissed!”

   
   
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Glossary
   
abound, to be present in large quantities (abounds)

abstain, to choose not to vote (abstained)

accurate, without mistakes; having the right facts

ambassador, the person who represents the government of his or her country in another country (ambassadors)

ammunition, bullets, shells, and other objects used as weapons shot from guns

assembly, people who gather to write laws for a government or organization (assemblies)
   
    
bayonet, a sharp piece of metal attached to the muzzle of a musket (bayonets)

belfry, a bell tower at the top of a church

bewitching, charming, captivating, or enchanting

bleak, depressing, grim, bad

boycott, to protest something by refusing to buy, use, or participate

breeches, pants that cover the hips down to just below the knee

burden, something that is heavy or difficult to accept (burdens)

burly, strong and heavy
   
    
casualty, a person killed or injured during battle (casualties)

charge, the amount of explosive material needed to cause a blast

conflict, a fight or struggle for power or authority

confront, to challenge or fight against

console, to comfort or try to make someone feel better and less sad

convoy, a group of ships traveling together for safety
   
   
decisive, important; without any doubt

declaration, an official statement of something

defiant, refusing to obey

dread, to look ahead to the future with great fear
    
    
eliminate, to get rid of something (eliminated)

engraving, a design or lettering made by cutting into the surface of wood, stone, or metal

enlist, to volunteer for military service (enlisted)

export, to send out a product to another country to be sold (exporting)
   
    
fleet, a group of military ships that sail under the same commander

foil, to prevent someone from doing something or achieving a goal (foiled)

foraging, for the purpose of searching for something, usually food or supplies

formidable, extremely powerful; worthy of respect

fortify, to make a place safe from attack by building defenses (walls, trenches, etc.) (fortified)

front, the place where fighting happens in a war (fronts)
    
    
grievance, a complaint resulting from being treated unfairly; a reason for complaining about a situation (grievances)
    
    
heed, to respect and follow advice or instructions (heeded)

henpecked, used to describe a man who is constantly controlled and criticized by his wife

hero, a person who is respected for bravery or good qualities (heroes, heroism)

heroine, a woman who is respected for bravery or good qualities (heroines)
    
    
implication, a possible effect or result that may take place in the future (implications)

import, to bring in a product from another country to be sold (importing)

impose, to force or require (imposed)

impress, to amaze; to cause others to feel admiration or interest (impressed)

indirectly, not having a clear and direct connection

intolerable, too painful or hard to be accepted
    
    
jeer, an insult or put-down (jeers)
   
    
laden, heavily loaded; carrying large amounts

levy, to use legal authority to demand and collect a fine or tax (levied)

liberty, freedom
    
    
master, to learn something completely; to gain the knowledge and skill that allows you to do something very well

mastermind, a person who takes the lead in planning and organizing something important

melancholy, sad or depressed

militia, ordinary people trained to be soldiers but who are not part of the full-time military

misleading, untrue

model company, a group of soldiers deserving to be copied or imitated by others

morale, confidence, level of enthusiasm one feels

musket, a long, heavy gun that is loaded at the muzzle

musket ball, ammunition shot from muskets (musket balls)

muzzle, the opening at the end of a gun or cannon where the ammunition comes out
    
    
neutral, not supporting either side of an argument, fight, or war

ninepins, a bowling game played with nine pins
    
   
opposition, disagreement with or disapproval of something

oppressive, harsh and unfair; cruel

otherwise, in a different way
     
    
patriot, a person who supports and defends his or her country (patriots, patriotism)

peal, a loud noise or repeated noises (peals)

petition, a document people sign to show their agreement or disagreement with something (petitions)

proclamation, a public announcement made by a person or government

provoke, to cause something to happen; to bring out anger in a person or people (provoked)
    
    
range, a specified distance

rebel, a person who fights against a government (rebels)

recruit, to search for people to join a group or organization (e.g., the army)

regiment, a military unit formed by multiple groups of soldiers

reinforce, to make a group more effective by adding more people or supplies (reinforced)

repeal, to undo or withdraw a law (repealed)

retreat, to move back or away from danger or attack (retreated)

revere, to respect or honor (revered)

revolutionary, leading to, or relating to, a complete change
    
    
score, another term for 20; a group of 20 things (scores)

skeptical, doubtful

skirmish, a short, unplanned fight in a war (skirmishes)

so-called, implying that the name or description of something or someone may be inaccurate

splendor, extreme, awe-inspiring beauty

stockpile, to collect materials to use in the future (weapons, food, etc.) (stockpiling)

strategic, carefully planned to achieve a specific goal, such as winning a battle or finishing a project

suitor, a man interested in marrying a certain woman

surrender, to give up, quit

switch, a thin stick that bends easily, often used as a whip
    
    
tactics, ways used to achieve a goal

tax, money a government charges for services it provides to the people (taxes)

traitor, someone who betrays his or her country, government, or a group he or she belongs to

turning point, a time when an important change occurs

tyrannical, ruling people in a threatening or cruel way
    
   
villain, someone who does evil things (villains)

volley, the firing of a large number of weapons at the same time
    
   
woo, to try to get someone to love you (wooing)
     
     
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Illustration Subtitles. French and Indian War. Territory gained by Britain (Treaty of Paris, 1763). Spanish Territory. Territory ceded to Britain. Thirteen Colonies. Acquired from Spain. British Territory. Stamps were imprinted or embossed on paper. The Stamp Act was very unpopular. The Stamp Act was seen as an unfair tax. The British Parliament made decisions on laws and taxes, including those that affected the colonies. George Grenville. George Washington. Buying, selling, even drinking tea became a political act in 1773. Teapot celebrating the repeal of the Stamp Act. Advertisement for a Sons of Liberty meeting. Paul Revere’s engraving of the event that became known as the Boston Massacre. Boston Tea Party. Phillis Wheatley. Crispus Attucks. Isaac Barre. Alfred Thompson, Redcoats Sack New England. Members of the First Continental Congress gather at Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia. Patrick Henry addressing Virginia representatives. Lantern. Battle of Lexington. North Carolina. South Carolina. Georgia. Samuel Adams. John Hancock. John Ward Dunsmore, Bunker Hill (Fight at Rail Fence). George Washington became commander of the Continental Army. Thomas Paine. Pages from “Common Sense.” John Trumbull, Declaration of Independence, 1817–1819. Independence Day in Washington, D.C. The Continental Colors.  The commander of each regiment in the Continental Army read the Declaration of Independence to his troops. Emanuel Leutze’s painting depicts the historic moment when General George Washington led Continental soldiers across the Delaware River to surprise Hessian troops who were hired to fight for the British. Washington riding through the camp at Valley Forge. Among Washington’s men at Valley Forge was a young French nobleman named the Marquis de Lafayette. Lafayette was to have a prominent role in the Revolutionary War. Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben. Lord Cornwallis. Louis-Nicolas van Blarenberghe, The Taking of Yorktown. John Trumbull, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis. Part of the Treaty of Paris. The Marquis de Lafayette. Edward Percy Moran, Washington’s Farewell to His Officers. Tadeusz Kosciuszko. John Paul Jones. Nathan Hale. James Armistead. Abigail Adams. Elizabeth Freeman. Washington Irving (1783-1859). Bostonians reading the Stamp Act. Colonial protestors. Cunne–Shote, Cherokee leader who sided with the British. Mohican warrior. Sponge. Mop. Ramrod. Quill fuse. Cannon. Breech. Muzzle.
     
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
      

Lesson 19 – Simple Machines

    
NEW WORDS: Archimedes, Denzel, Russell, Terrence, Terrence’s, abashed, adjuvant, agglomerate, agriculturists, agronomist, agronomy, ahold, amalgamations, applauds, attenuate, balances, bristle, complex’s, confabulates, contrivance, contrivances, culminates, cylinders, deliberates, devising, drubs, educatory, elevators, employable, equivalently, exertions, exhausting, fabrication, facilely, fascicle, flagpoles, frontiersmen, handcart, integrating, lengthier, levers, ligneous, mandatory, manipulates, mixers, multiplies, nail’s, nescient, operose, plotted, profundity, propagating, pulleys, realizable, reconditioned, reconstructing, reorient, reservations, revolving, roofers, savvies, slackens, slants, spirals, splitting, standpoint, straddles, toolmaker, toting, unflagging, unworkable, utilitarian, visualization, woodcarvers
   
   

Chapter One: A Trip To “Old Time Farm”
   
Let’s meet Denzel and Terrence Russell. Denzel is Terrence’s dad. They’ve plotted to do something fun, yet educatory, today. They’ve made reservations to visit Old Time Farm! Terrence will look for horses, cows, and chickens, and he will see farmers propagating fruits and vegetables.
   
At the farm, Terrence asks his dad, “Will we see a tractor? Do you think we can ride on one?”
   
“No way,” says Denzel. “This farm does not have any tractors, and the farm complex’s buildings do not have electricity for heat or light.” Denzel says that Old Time Farm is a historical farm. The agriculturists here raise crops and animals the same way that frontiersmen did a long time past. That’s way before tractors were a contrivance. The farm is a great place to help to teach kids what life was like in America way before modern times.
   
Terrence savvies that agronomy is a lot of work. Farmers must dig and plow the Earth to grow crops, and they’re always toting food for their animals. So much effort goes into being an agronomist!
   
“It must be hard to farm without machines,” Terrence says.
   
“You might be nescient of the kinds of machines that you can find, even at Old Time Farm,” Denzel tells his son. “Let’s look for all of the things that these farmers can use to help make their work easier.”
   
Terrence likes this thought. Their trip here will now be integrating a scavenger hunt to find machines on Old Time Farm!

Chapter Two: What Is A Ramp?
   
As soon as they enter the barnyard, Denzel says, “I see a machine!” Terrence looks around, but he does not see any machines. He sees just a big ligneous barn. The barn is tall, and it has doors at the bottom, in front. It also has doors on the side that are much higher up. A stone wall slants upward to the high side door.
   
“Do you see the stone wall on the side of the barn?” Denzel asks. “See how it slopes upward? That’s a ramp,” he says. “A ramp is a simple machine.”
   
“But Dad,” Terrence says, “that ramp doesn’t do a thing. It can’t move. How can it be a machine?” Terrence is a little abashed, since the machines that he knows about are things like tractors, lawn mowers, and kitchen mixers.

Denzel confabulates about how a machine does not have to do a task itself, and it does not have to be made up of a fascicle of moving parts. What makes an object a simple machine is that it makes human work less operose. When you push, pull, lift, or split something to move it, that is work. Work is when you use force, like pushing or pulling on an object, over a distance, like up a ramp.
   
Simple machines make work easier by changing how you do it, and it lowers the physical exertion that’s needed to do it. A machine can change how hard you have to push or pull a thing to move it, or it can reorient the direction that you need to push or pull a thing to move it.
   
Denzel says, “Form a visualization in your mind. Think of that barn without the ramp. Suppose there was just a ladder to the high door. How would you get things into the upstairs rooms of the barn? It would be exhausting, wouldn’t it?”

When you want to move something to a higher level, how do you do it? Some things you can facilely pick up and lift to a higher place. But what if the object is too heavy to lift? Or what if it is too big to get ahold of? Well, you can slide or roll big, heavy objects up a ramp. To move the object that way is much easier than picking it up.
   
In the end, the object has been moved with fewer physical exertions – thanks to the simple machine. But your activity culminates with the same result. You’ve lifted it up to a higher place. Let’s go over it again, with a bit more profundity. When you move an object on a ramp, you move it a lengthier distance. But the push or pull that you use to move the object does not have to be as unflagging. We know this, since it’s realizable to figure out how much work is done. One multiplies the “force used,” by pushing or pulling, times the “distance traveled,” which is how far the force is used.
   
Let’s pretend that you use a force of 2 units to move an object a distance of 2 units. 2 times 2 is 4, so you have work of 4 units. Can you attenuate the physical labor that’s mandatory to move the object? Well, maybe you can with a ramp. A ramp increases the distance that you move the object to 4 units. But the ramp also means that the force needed to push the object is just 1 unit instead of 2 units. 1 times 4 is 4, so the total work is still 4 units. It’s the same total amount of work. But it’s easier from a human labor standpoint. That’s thanks to the ramp, because you don’t have to push or pull as hard to move the object! Explaining work isn’t easy. But this should be a utilitarian way to understand how it works.

Chapter Three: What Is A Wheel And Axle?
    
Terrence deliberates about what the farmers might move up the ramp to the upstairs rooms in the barn. Before long, he thinks that he’s got it. He spots a wagon piled full of hay. “That’s right,” his dad says. “You’ve just found your second simple machine! That wagon has four wheels on two axles. A wheel and an axle make up another simple machine.”
   
Terrence knows all about wheels! They’re on bikes, scooters, and skates. There are wheels on his dad’s car and on his lawn mower. Terrence’s school bus has wheels. So do the book carts in the library and the grocery carts at the store. Terrence thinks about the field of pumpkins at the farm. What if he were to agglomerate all of the pumpkins into a box and slide it across the ground? That would be hard! It’s much easier to push a load of pumpkins in some kind of handcart, like a wheelbarrow. It rolls on a wheel! A simple machine like a wheel and axle makes the effort easier.
   
Wheels on a wagon are not attached directly to the wagon. The center of each wheel is fixed to a rod called an axle. The wheel and axle move together. If you turn one of them, the other turns with it. There might be only one wheel on an axle, like on a wheelbarrow, or two wheels on an axle, like on a car.
   
Wheels and axles are employable in ways other than making things roll, too. A doorknob is a wheel and axle. The knob part that you turn with your hand is the wheel. That knob is attached to an axle. That’s a rod that goes through the door. The axle moves parts that are inside the door. That happens when you turn the knob. It’s easier to turn the knob than to turn the rod all by itself.
   
Terrence and his dad find another wheel and axle on the farm in an unexpected place. The old water well has a bucket attached to a chain. The chain is wrapped around an axle. When the wheel is turned, the chain wraps around the axle and raises the bucket full of water from the well. It’s a lot easier than pulling the heavy bucket straight up.

Chapter Four: What Is A Pulley?
    
Terrence spots another well. He looks for the wheel and axle. He sees a wheel. But something about this well is not the same. The bucket tope hangs over the grooved wheel. But there’s no way to turn the wheel. Denzel applauds Terrence. He has found his third simple machine! The wheel with the rope is called a pulley. Pulling down on the rope makes it go across the wheel. Then it lifts the bucket.
    
Denzel leads Terrence to another small barn on the farm. There, they’ll look for more examples. Terrence spots another pulley right away. Like the first barn that they saw, this barn has a door high above the ground. Denzel explains that the upstairs area in a barn is called a loft. Terrence figures out that farmers must use the pulley to help them to lift things into the loft. Pulleys change the direction of a pulling force. They help people lift objects upward by pulling downward. This helps them use the adjuvant force of gravity to move objects.
   
Pulleys are used to raise and lower flags on flagpoles. They are used to raise and lower sails on sailboats. They are even used when exercising. Roofers sometimes use pulleys to lift shingles up to a roof. A crane uses pulleys to lift pieces into place for the fabrication of buildings. Elevators inside tall buildings use pulleys to lift people and cargo from one floor to another.
    
Often, pulleys are used in sets. Two or more pulleys used together with one rope make it much easier to lift a heavy load. A contrivance of two or more pulleys together is called a “block and tackle.” This is not a simple machine, though. It’s called a “compound” machine. We’ll talk about compound machines later.

Chapter Five: What Is A Lever?
   
A lot of work happens at the Old Time Farm, but Terrence also finds a place to play. “Look,” he says. “It’s an old wooden seesaw!” He climbs onto one end of the seesaw, and his dad straddles the other end.
   
When Denzel sits down on his end, Terrence is lifted high at the other end. “This is a machine, too!” Denzel states. “A seesaw is a kind of simple machine called a lever.”
    
A lever is made up of a board or rod that rocks back and forth. It balances on a point called a fulcrum. The two sides of the lever are called arms, and when you push down on one arm of a lever, the arm on the opposite side of the fulcrum moves up. After a bit of fun on the seesaw, father and son set out to see if they can find more levers on the farm. They soon find a fence gate that has a lever for a latch. Terrence pushes down on one arm of the latch, and then the other arm lifts off of the plank to let the gate open!
   
They soon meet some volunteers who are working on the farm. Terrence learns that they’re all using varied types of levers! One of them digs with a shovel. The flat end is one arm of a lever, digging into the ground. The handle end of the shovel is the other arm, held by the volunteer. The ground is the fulcrum, and when the person pushes down on the handle arm, the spade arm pushes dirt up to leave a hole. Lifting the dirt with a lever makes the effort easier!

Another person is reconstructing the orchard fence. She uses a lever called a crowbar, and she’s working to pry a broken board from the fence. The crowbar pushes through the fence, and then she pushes down on one end. The other end pushes against the fence and the broken board. That moves the broken board so that she can take it away.
   
A lot of work is needed to do these things, and levers make the work easier. Think about how work can be calculated by multiplying force and distance again. Picture digging into the ground without a shovel. You can get some work done if you try, but it’s not as hard with a shovel. The shovel, working as a lever, lets you use a lot more force over the same distance. This means that more work gets done, and that’s less labor output for you! Think about how hard things like this could be if we did not have simple machines like levers!
   
Another volunteer is sweeping the kitchen porch with a broom. The bristle end of the broom is the arm of a lever. The broom moves dirt a greater distance for the person sweeping the floor. The same force, with more distance, means that more work gets done. It saves the person effort!
   
Inside of Old Time Farm’s kitchen, Denzel spots another lever. It is a balance scale used to weigh foods such as fruit or grains. When items on both arms of the scale weigh the same, they balance equivalently on the fulcrum. Terrence says, “It’s just like a seesaw!”

Chapter Six: What Are Wedges And Screws?
   
Outside the farm kitchen, Denzel and Terrence meet a farmer who is splitting big logs into firewood. To do this, he uses an iron wedge. Terrence thinks that its shape looks like a slice of cake. He learns that wedges are simple machines, too. To split the wood, the farmer puts the narrow end of the wedge against the log, and then he drubs the thick end of the wedge with a mallet. Each time the farmer pounds on the wedge, the narrow end drives deeper into the log. It makes the crack in the log bigger until the wood splits apart. Using a wedge makes splitting a log a lot easier than pulling it apart. “That would be unworkable without the wedge!” Terrence says.
    
The head of an axe is also a wedge. A woodcutter can swing the axe to split the wood. The axe is a wedge that slackens the effort. This is because it can swing fast. The faster the axe moves, the more force it can split the wood with. More force over the same distance means more work gets done, right? An axe might be too big; therefore, there are smaller wedges that let carpenters and woodcarvers more carefully shape wood. Wedges such as these are called chisels.
   
You can find wedges in your home, too. A knife is a wedge that cuts food apart. A doorstop is a wedge, too. You push the doorstop in under the door, and the doorstop changes the direction of the push. It pushes up against the door and down against the floor, and those pushes hold the door in place.
   
Another kind of wedge is a nail. Look closely at a nail, and you can see a shining, pointy tip. A nail gets wider from its tip in the same way that a wedge gets wider from its thin side. Usually, people use a hammer to push a nail into something, like a wall. The combination of the nail’s point and the force of the hammer make the work of wedging the nail in much easier. A screw is a kind of wedge, too. These are wedges that are wrapped around stick shapes, or cylinders. When you rotate a screw, using a screwdriver, the wedge enters the wood. It acts like a tiny axe, and it pushes the wood apart. The motion of turning the screw pulls the screw deeper into the material.

Chapter Seven: Science In Action – Meeting A Toolmaker
    
Denzel and Terrence meet a blacksmith at Old Time Farm. The blacksmith makes things out of iron by heating the metal. Heating the metal makes it start to melt. Then he manipulates it more easily. The blacksmith shapes it, and then he cools it off to keep the metal in its new shape. The toolmaker makes all kinds of tools used on the farm. He makes some simple machines, and he makes axes and wedges and iron bars for levers.
   
Sometimes two or more simple machines can be used together. Lots of useful contrivances are amalgamations of two or more simple machines working hand-in-hand. Two or more simple machines combined in the same device are called a “compound machine.” Do you recall the shovel that Terrence learned is really a lever? Well, it’s not just a lever. The sharp edge of the spade end of the shovel is a wedge, and that edge pushes the Earth apart when pushed into the ground. A shovel is made of a lever and a wedge; therefore, it is a compound machine.
   
The blacksmith shows Terrence some compound machines in his workshop. He uses big pliers to hold hot metal as he shapes it. Pliers are a compound machine. There are two levers, and the bolt that holds the two long pieces together is the fulcrum for both levers. Scissors are compound machines, too. Like pliers, they are two levers attached in the middle at a fulcrum. The sharp cutting edges of scissors are wedges.
   
Recently, the blacksmith has reconditioned a plow, which is a farm tool on wheels. It is pulled by a horse, and the farmer walks behind the plow to guide it. The plow has a wedge that cuts into the Earth and pushes the soil apart for planting crops. The plow has a wheel and axle, another simple machine. Terrence knows now that a plow is a compound machine.
   
People have been devising ways to use and combine simple machines for a long time. One person who did this was a man named Archimedes, who lived over two-thousand years ago in ancient Greece. He observed and described the ways that levers, pulleys, and screws work, and he was the first person to write about ways that machines make tasks easier.
    
One of Archimedes’ inventions was a way to use a screw to lift water. The screw fits snugly inside a pipe, and revolving a crank at the top turns the screw. The wedge that spirals around the screw pushes water up through the pipe. Turning the crank is easier than lifting many buckets of water out of this river.

    
   
*********

    
    
Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
     

Lesson 20 – The Human Body (“Set One”)

    
NEW WORDS: Bryson, Bryson’s, Daytona, Delano, Grace’s, Jayce, Jayce’s, abdominal, acclivitous, acrobatics, aptitude, ascertains, averting, backbend, backpacks, bundling, capacitates, cessation, chaperoning, coccyx, contraction, correlative, diaphragms, dietary, digests, disciplinarian, disciplines, distends, enacted, endurant, epithelial, everlasting, exemplifying, exertive, exhalation, exhaling, exits, feces, flexing, foreseeing, gallbladder, healing, interconnections, lengthening, limber, lissome, lithe, liveliness, magnification, maintains, manufactures, moderately, nutritionist, nutritionists, obligates, pathogens, physiologist, physiologists, poop, proficiently, propping, raisins, regenerates, regimen, rehabilitating, repeating, repetitions, replies, resumption, routines, safeguards, serum, sloshes, subjoined, substructure, surgical, temporarily, therapist, therapists, toilets, transmittances, trauma, unambiguously, unerringly, untightening, unwind, urethra, viruses, vitiated
    
   

Human Body Systems
   
Chapter One: Grace Is Very Limber
   
Grace is foreseeing a fun day at school. She gets to wear her gymnastics clothes. Today at school is show-and-tell day. On show-and-tell day, the kids each get to share with the class. They can bring an object from home to show. Or they can show or tell something that they know how to do.
   
Last month for show-and-tell, Grace brought a big seashell. She had found it at Daytona Beach. Today, she won’t bring an object to school. She’ll show what she can do. Grace does a backbend! She stands on her toes. She bends backwards so that her hands are behind her. They are propping up her body.
   
Grace learned to do a backbend in her acrobatics class. She has taken gymnastics lessons since she was small. She disciplines herself well and practices each day. That way, she’ll be prepped to compete soon. Her practice makes her body endurant and lissome.
   
Mr. Brown asks, “Grace, what’s the hardest gymnastics skill that you’ve learned?” Grace answers him fast. But she does not use words. Instead, she shows everyone. She does a handstand! She puts her hands on the floor. She lifts her feet up. Now she’s upside down!
   
Grace returns to her feet. “It’s harder to hold your body up on your arms than it is on your legs,” she says. “The arms are not as strong as the legs.”
   
Mr. Brown then asks the class to think about how Grace’s body works while she does a handstand.

Chapter Two: The Bones
   
Grace enacted a backbend and a handstand at show-and-tell. These skills took lots of tries for her to learn. When Grace learns new gymnastics skills, she moves her body in ways that are hard at first. Lots of the movements that she can do require lots of practice repetitions. She works out to get stronger. She stretches to become more flexible.
   
Though Grace is quite lithe, her body can only bend in certain ways. The body can bend just at the joints. Joints are the places where the bones are subjoined, like the elbow or the knee. The bones themselves do not bend. The human body has lots of bones. When you’re young, you have about 300 bones. As you grow, some of the bones fuse, or join together. They make bigger, stronger bones. When you’re an adult, you have about 200 bones.
   
All of your bones make up your skeleton. That’s your body’s substructure. Think how a picture frame keeps a picture in one place. That’s what your skeleton does for your body. There are bones all over. They’re in your head, your arms and hands, your chest, your legs and feet, and in other places, too.
   
Bones come in lots of varied shapes and sizes. Your head bones form your skull. That protects your brain. You have a set of bones in your chest. That’s called your rib cage. It safeguards your heart and lungs. With care, press against your chest and move down. Does it feel bumpy? You’re feeling each rib as it crosses from side-to-side. You also have a lot of bones in your hands. Bend each of your fingers. If you can only bend them at the joints, and a joint is a place between two bones, can you count how many bones are in each of your fingers?
   
It’s important that one maintains healthy bones. To grow and stay healthy, bones need nutrients from your dietary regimen. Calcium is good for your bones. It is a nutrient found in certain foods, especially in dairy, spinach, and kale. Make sure to get enough calcium in your diet. That’s critical while your bones are growing.
   
Your bones can’t bend, but they can break. If you get hurt really badly, you might see a doctor to get an X-ray picture taken. The X-rays can see through your body and look at your bones. That’s how a doctor ascertains if they’re broken. Amazingly, your body regenerates bones if they are broken. But it takes time. If your bones need to heal, the doctor will put a hard bandage called a cast over the bone. This holds the bone in place, and it makes sure that it heals the right way.

Chapter Three: The Muscles
   
Gymnastics involves body movements. Grace can do lots of kinds of movements. The parts of her body that produce motion are the muscles. Grace’s coach is quite a disciplinarian. She teaches her exercises to make her muscles stronger. She learns to stretch to make her muscles more flexible.
   
Your muscles make up your muscular system. Some of your muscles are called skeletal muscles. These are muscles that attach to your bones. They also attach to each other. Muscles let your body bend and straighten at the joints.
   
Like with bones, you have lots of muscles. There are about 600 of them. They are soft, and they can move around. You have muscles in your head, your arms and hands, your chest, your legs and feet, and in other places, too.
   
Muscles work by contracting, or shortening – and then untightening, or lengthening. Any time that you bend or straighten part of your body at a joint, muscles are contracting or relaxing to move your bones. Contracting a muscle is also called flexing. When you bend your leg, some muscles contract to bend it. Then others contract to make your leg straight again.
   
You can make your muscles stronger through exercise. Use your muscles until they get tired. That makes them stronger when you rest. Doing this right can lead to strong muscles. Running is good exercise for leg muscles. Push-ups are good for arm muscles. And leg lifts are good for abdominal, or chest muscles.
   
Some other kinds of muscles aren’t attached to bones. One of these muscles is your heart. When you feel your heartbeat, you’re feeling your heart muscles contract and relax. They do this over and over. Exercise that makes your heart beat fast for a short time is good for your heart muscle. It helps keep you fit and healthy. Growing and building strong muscles obligates you to keep a diet of healthful foods in addition to your exercise routines.
   
Over time, after lifting a certain amount of weight, muscles become stronger and can lift more. Also over time, after repeating a motion, muscles can stretch farther. Muscles can get hurt if we stretch them too far or too fast, though. We call this pulling a muscle. And a pulled muscle can be quite painful. To be able to do something like splits, Grace had to move toward the position again and again, moderately and gradually.

Chapter Four: Breathing
   
After exemplifying a number of gymnastics skills for her class, Grace is breathing hard and fast. Her chest rises and falls. It is hard for her to speak for a few minutes. As she sits still and rests, her breathing slows down. When she is breathing normally again, it is easier to talk.
   
Your body needs air, or, unambiguously, the oxygen in the air, to stay alive. Breathing is the body’s process of taking in air. Your body breathes automatically, whether you think about it or not. Breathing continues when you’re not aware of it. You breathe the whole time that you’re asleep. When you’re awake, you can notice your breathing, and you can partially control it. You can temporarily hold your breath.
   
Take a deep breath and let it out. Breathing in is called inhaling, or inhalation. When you breathe in, you inhale. Breathing out is called exhaling, or exhalation. When you breathe out, you exhale. Notice how your chest distends when you inhale. Your lungs inside your chest are filling with air. Notice how your chest and belly shrink back in when you exhale. Your lungs push the old air out. You take fresh air in again with your next breath.
   
The parts of your body that breathe air in and out make up the respiratory system. You breathe air in through the nose and mouth. The air goes to your lungs, which takes the oxygen from the air that you need to breathe. A muscle under the lungs is called the diaphragm. Our diaphragms control our breathing, pulling air in (as the lungs get larger), and pushing air out (as the lungs get smaller), over and over.
   
While you are exertive, your body needs more air. You breathe faster and more heavily. While you are resting, your body needs less air. You breathe slower and less deeply. Your lungs need clean, fresh air. Even though you can’t see it, air can be dirty and contain harmful particles or germs. When dirty air or germs get into your respiratory system, they can make you sick. When you have a cold, germs have vitiated the breathing passages in your head and chest. Smoke contains particles that make air dirty. Breathing in smoke is harmful to your lungs, for instance.

Chapter Five: Pumping Blood
   
When Grace is breathing heavily from her gymnastics exercises, she can also feel her heart pounding in her chest. You’ve learned that the heart is a muscle. Well, that muscle works faster when the body is active. Its pumping, called the heartbeat, gets faster the more active you are. The same is true of breathing. You need more air to be active. As you sit down and unwind, the heart slows down again.
   
Your heart beats all the time that you are awake and all the time that you are asleep. Like breathing, your heart beats without cessation for your entire life. Unlike breathing, you can’t control your heartbeat when you notice and think about it.
   
Your heart is part of a system that moves blood throughout your body. The body parts that move your blood make up your circulatory system. Your heart is in your chest, the center of your body. Below it, you have two kidneys that keep your blood clean. From your heart and kidneys are your blood vessels, which spread all over your body to move blood around.
   
All the parts of your body need materials that come from food and air. Your blood carries these materials to your body parts. The blood moves through blood vessels, and these vessels are like hoses. They form interconnections of tubes throughout your body. Veins and arteries are names for two types of blood vessels.
   
A heartbeat is the contraction, or squeezing, of your heart muscle. When your heart contracts, it squeezes blood out and pushes the blood through your blood vessels. You can feel your blood being pushed through some of your blood vessels with each heartbeat. This is called your pulse. Exercise and proper eating help keep your heart healthy. Too many foods that are oily or fatty can be harmful to your heart and blood vessels. Drinking plenty of water also helps keep your blood and your circulatory system healthy.

Chapter Six: The Brain
   
Grace is learning to proficiently control her body. Her gymnastics exercises make her muscles strong and flexible. She can perform graceful muscle movements. When she does a movement unerringly, then she knows what it feels like. She can remember it and do the movement more easily the next time.
   
Your brain controls all the things that your body does. It controls the things you think about, like movement. It also controls the things that you don’t think about, like your breathing and heartbeat.
   
When you move, you do so because your brain sends transmittances to your muscles to control them. Messages between your brain and your body parts are carried by nerves. The nerves in your brain and body make up your nervous system.
   
Your brain is in your head. Your spinal cord connects from your brain down the center of your body, branching through the nerves, which spread throughout your whole body.
   
Your spinal cord carries information to and from your brain. Nerves branch out from your spinal cord to the rest of your body. Your spinal cord is protected inside your spine. Your spine is the set of backbones from your neck to your tailbone, or coccyx.
   
Nerves connecting your brain to muscles control movement and balance. Your senses, like vision and hearing, also rely on nerves. Nerves carry information from your body to your brain. This lets you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.
   
Brain and spine injuries are very serious and dangerous. When you are playing sports, riding a bike, or doing other rugged activity, it is important to wear the proper safety equipment, like a helmet. Helmets add an extra bit of protection in case you hit your head, where your brain is.

Chapter Seven: Science In Action – Physiologists And Anatomy
   
Grace will soon be old enough to compete in gymnastics competitions. She is becoming an athlete. When athletes compete in sports, they make unusual demands of their bodies. Young athletes must have coaches to teach them skills. Their coaches must also be sure that the sports do not harm the athletes’ growing bodies.
   
One of the adults who works with Grace is not a coach. She is called a sports physiologist. She keeps track of Grace’s growth and fitness. She measures the strength of Grace’s different muscles. If Grace needs to strengthen a muscle, the physiologist teaches her an exercise that works right to develop that muscle.
   
Exercise physiologists can help anyone who needs to learn how to make their body more fit through movement. But they do not work only with athletes.
   
A physical therapist helps people regain or improve their aptitude for moving normally. Many things can make it more difficult for a person to move their body. For example, an illness, physical trauma, or surgical procedure can make it hard for a person to move. Muscles and nerves need time to recover. Physical therapists show people ways to rebuild strength while they are healing and rehabilitating.
   
Some injuries or conditions are temporary. The body heals, and its parts move the way that they did before. Other conditions are everlasting. Illness or injury can make bones, muscles, or nerves work differently. When something limits body movement, a person can find different ways to do things. Physical therapists help people figure out new ways to do all of the things that they need to do.
   
Staying healthy and having strong muscles also means averting diseases. You might know that viruses cause colds and flu. Some viruses can also affect muscles and nerves. One dangerous virus causes a disease called “polio.” Viruses that cause polio can damage a person’s spinal cord. The infected spinal cord can’t work with the body’s other nerves to control muscle movement. Polio can leave people unable to walk.
   
A vaccine can prevent polio. A vaccine is a medical treatment, usually a shot. The polio vaccine prevents the polio virus from hurting the body. A man named Jonas Salk was the first doctor to create a vaccine for polio. It didn’t always exist. The vaccine was first used in the U.S. in 1955.
   
Dr. Salk became a national hero for his important work. It became routine for everyone to get the vaccine in childhood. Polio used to be a very dangerous disease. Even a U.S. President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had polio. But by the late 1970s, polio was rare in the United States. And today, it’s almost completely gone, thanks to Jonas Salk and his serum.

    
   
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Human Cells And Digestion
   
Chapter One: The Hungry Hiker
   
Jayce finishes his cereal, berries, and apple with a glass of orange juice. Then he eats an orange, too. Jayce is always hungry in the morning. Uncle Bryson is in the kitchen beside him. He is bundling up lunch for the two of them. Today, Uncle Bryson is chaperoning Jayce on a hike at Tall Falls Park. They will hike to see some beautiful waterfalls.
   
Uncle Bryson and Jayce must prepare their backpacks. They pack snacks to eat on their rest breaks. They pack a picnic lunch for when they reach the falls. They also pack water to drink throughout the hike. “It will take most of the daytime to walk to the falls and back,” Uncle Bryson says. “The hike to the falls is mostly acclivitous. It might make us tired. We’ll stop and rest a few times along the way.”
   
Jayce and Uncle Bryson set out on the trail. After they have walked for about an hour, they stop for their first rest break. Jayce is thirsty. He drinks from his water bottle. Uncle Bryson shares a bag of nuts and fruit that he packed for their first snack. Both drink more water, and then it’s time for the resumption of their hike.
   
Jayce and Uncle Bryson walk for another hour. They are more than halfway to the falls now. They stop again for another rest break. Jayce drinks more water. He quickly eats the raisins that he brought in his backpack. But when the two begin walking again, Jayce’s stomach growls. Even though he ate a big breakfast and two snacks, he wishes that it were time for lunch! Why is he hungry again?

Chapter Two: The Digestive System
   
Jayce ate a big breakfast. Then he ate two snacks and drank lots of water. Now, he wants even more to eat. He feels like he could eat a whole meal, even though it isn’t even time for lunch. “What about all that breakfast food that you ate?” asks Bryson. “Where did that go?”
   
“That’s a good question,” Jayce replies. “I don’t know where the nuts and raisins that I ate went, either. Why isn’t my stomach just staying full?” Jayce is right that his stomach doesn’t stay full. After all, his body is using the food that he ate earlier for energy. The human body needs lots of energy to grow, move, and stay alive.
   
The energy that you need comes from the food you eat. To stay healthy, you usually have to eat three times a day. You need a good breakfast, a good lunch, and a good dinner, too. The body’s process of breaking food down to use for energy is called digestion. The group of body parts that carry out digestion, then, is called the digestive system.
   
Digestion begins with chewing. When you chew food, you crush it with your teeth. Your tongue pushes the food around and mixes it with saliva in your mouth. Saliva is another name for spit. Saliva starts the chemical breakdown of the food you eat.
   
When you swallow, the chewed food moves through a tube called the esophagus. Your esophagus extends from your throat, through your neck, inside your chest, to your stomach.
   
In your stomach, chewed food is broken down further by digestive juices that your body manufactures. When you hear your tummy as it sloshes, it is these juices that are moving around inside your stomach. Body parts called the liver and gallbladder make some of the juices that help you digest food.
   
The liquid food mixture moves from your stomach into your small intestine. When your stomach moves all its contents into your intestines, you have an empty stomach. And then, you might begin to feel hungry again. Food from the stomach moves into your small intestine first. The small intestine is a long, narrow, folded tube. Food then moves through a shorter, thicker intestine, called the large intestine.
   
The intestines absorb food and water. These are materials that your body needs. Materials move out of the intestines and into your blood and are carried to all parts of your body. Your intestines do not absorb all of the food that you eat. Some material in food passes all the way through your intestines. The leftover food material leaves your body as waste.

Chapter Three: Cells
   
Jayce and Bryson complete their hike to the waterfalls. They see the beautiful scenery. Then they enjoy their picnic lunch. Jayce is happy that they brought plenty to eat. He worked up quite an appetite as he hiked toward the falls. After he eats, he starts to feel more liveliness again. He thinks that he will soon be ready to hike some more.
   
Jayce’s body worked hard as he hiked to the falls. His body is still working as he rests. Jayce’s body is made up of different parts. His body parts use food energy for growth and repair even when Jayce is not moving. The digestive system is one example of a set of body parts. It is made up of several organs. The stomach, small intestine, and large intestine are all organs. Each organ is made up of tissues. And the tissues are made up of groups of correlative cells.
   
Cells are the smallest living units of the body. Cells use energy from food. They divide to make more cells. Our cells help us to grow and repair tissues. While they are healthy, cells carry out life processes without ever stopping. Individual body cells are very tiny. They are much too small to see without magnification.
   
The human body has many different types of cells. They all use materials from food to carry out their different tasks. Blood carries food materials to cells around the body so that they can function well. The materials move from the blood into the cells.
   
Here’s a quick health tip. It is important to drink lots of water so that cells have what they need to keep your body healthy. Why? Well, human cells are mostly water. Blood is mostly water, too. Water is indispensable to living things, so drink plenty of it!

Chapter Four: How Cells Work Together
   
Jayce’s digestive system makes his lunch available to the rest of his body. Nutrients and energy from his food move from his intestines into his blood. His blood carries the materials to all his cells. The cells absorb the materials that they need from Jayce’s blood. Healthy cells mean a healthy body. Also, the cells divide to make more cells so that Jayce’s body grows and repairs itself.
   
Cells of specific types work together to form tissues. The body has different types of tissues. For example, your muscles are a type of tissue. Muscle tissue is made from similar kinds of cells. Muscle tissue capacitates your body’s movement. Muscles work by contracting and relaxing, or getting shorter and longer.
   
Muscles that attach to your bones allow you to move around. Muscle tissues in your digestive system move without you thinking about it. They push the food that you eat through the digestive system.
   
The bicep is a muscle in the arm. It causes the arm to bend at the elbow. Another type of tissue is connective tissue. Connective tissue joins all the parts of your body together. Connective tissue can connect bones to muscles or even bones to other bones. A connective tissue called cartilage makes up most of your ear, most of your nose, and much of your rib cage. Connective tissue holds the bones in the arm together at the elbow. Cartilage also makes a cushion between the bones.
   
A third type of tissue forms the coverings of your body parts. This type of tissue is called epithelial tissue. Your skin is made of different types of epithelial tissue. Epithelial tissue covers parts that are inside your body, too. Healthy cells mean healthy skin and healthy insides.
   
A fourth type of tissue in your body is nervous tissue. Nervous tissue carries signals to and from parts of your body. Nervous tissue sends signals to and from muscles. Nervous tissues are part of all your senses. Nervous tissue also carries messages that keep your body parts working without you having to think about them. Digestion, breathing, and your heartbeat are examples of these types of processes.

Chapter Five: Tissues And Organs
   
Jayce and Bryson are hiking back down from the hills. They have been walking on the trail for a few hours. Even though they had a nice picnic lunch, Jayce is already thinking about the snack that he’ll have when they stop for another short break. Bryson smiles when Jayce asks if it is time for a snack break yet. “I remember when I was your age,” Bryson says. “When you are growing, it seems like you are hungry most of the time!”
   
Jayce’s digestive system is supporting other parts in his body. His digestive system breaks down everything that he eats and makes the materials available to his body’s cells. Similar kinds of cells working together form tissues. Different kinds of tissues work together to form organs. Your heart and stomach are organs. Each is made of different kinds of tissues. Your intestines and liver are organs, too.
   
What other parts of your body are organs? Well, your eyes and brain are. They also are made of different kinds of tissues. All of the cells in all of the tissues in your eyes and brain need energy and nutrients to stay healthy. The cells get the materials that they need from the food that your body digests. The energy used by the cells in your eyes and brain enables the tissues and organs to do their jobs.
   
Even your bones and skin are organs. They are made of different kinds of tissue. The cells of these tissues need food energy and nutrients to stay healthy. The materials that cells get from food enable organs to do their jobs.
   
Similar kinds of cells make up tissues, different kinds of tissues working together are organs, and different kinds of organs working together are organ systems. The digestive system is one example of an organ system. Remember, what is the function that the digestive system performs? The skeletal system, muscular system, nervous system, circulatory system, and respiratory system are other organ systems. Think about what we’ve covered and what parts of your body those organ systems include. What functions do these organ systems perform?

Chapter Six: Body Waste
   
Bryson and Jayce are reaching the end of their hike at Tall Falls Park. Jayce can see the end of the trail. He can see the roof of the park shelter beside the lot where Bryson parked the car. “It’s a good thing that we’re back to the park entrance,” Jayce says in a hurried voice. “I really have to go to the restroom!”
   
“So do I,” Bryson replies. The two of them run the last few yards to find the toilets in the park building.
   
While Jayce and Bryson’s bodies were using energy and nutrients from food, some material in the food was not used. Some of the material in solid food passes through the large intestine and exits the body as waste. The body’s solid digestive wastes are called feces, though they are also called stool, or poop. Waste must leave the body to keep the body healthy.
   
When living cells take in the materials that they use, they also give off waste materials. The waste materials are carried away from cells by the blood stream. The wastes leave the blood and are gotten rid of by the body in a number of ways. Some kinds of waste are carried from the body in water. The body’s liquid waste is called urine. The parts of the body involved in this removal of waste include the kidneys, bladder, and urethra. These make up part of an organ system called the excretory system.
   
Even before they reached the restroom, Jayce’s and Bryson’s bodies were getting rid of waste materials during the entire hike. Both hikers were breathing heavily and sweating. The body gets rid of some of the waste from cells through sweat. Lungs get rid of waste from the body, too. You inhale fresh air that has oxygen in it. Oxygen is a gas that your cells need. Your cells use the oxygen and give off a different gas called carbon dioxide. Your body needs to get rid of the carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide leaves your body through your lungs when you exhale.

Chapter Seven: Science In Action – Nutrition And Staying Well
   
Bryson planned the hike for Jayce mostly because it was fun but also because exercise is good for both of their bodies. Bryson also packed healthful foods for their snacks and lunch. Bryson is a nutritionist. Nutritionists plan meals to help people be healthy. He helps people identify and eat nutritious foods. Bryson also helps people know how much food they need to maintain a healthy body weight.
   
Food choices are important. Too much or too little of some substances in food can make you sick. For example, leafy green vegetables contain vitamins that cells need to repair tissues. Eating too few vegetables can make your body slow to heal from an injury.
   
An occasional sweet treat is fun to eat. However, foods with too much sugar are not good for our bodies. An orange is naturally sweet. It also contains substances the body needs. A cookie is sweet because it has a lot of sugar. But cookies do not contain the natural vitamins that fresh fruit does.
   
Food safety is also important. Any substance that you put into your body affects the health of your cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems. Food can become contaminated with harmful substances that can make you sick. Germs that make food unsafe to eat are called pathogens. Sometimes you can see or smell when food is spoiled. You can see when mold makes fruit or vegetables rotten. But unseen bacteria can grow in food, too. You often cannot see or smell pathogens.

People In Science: Louis Pasteur
   
Louis Pasteur was a French scientist who lived in the 1800s. He investigated the idea that tiny organisms made food decay and could cause illnesses and disease. Pasteur studied how to keep dangerous germs out of food. He developed a heating process to kill germs in some types of food. The process is called pasteurization after Pasteur’s name. Many of the foods that you buy today in the grocery store are pasteurized. Milk is the most familiar example. Pasteurization makes foods safer, and it can make foods last longer.
    
   
People In Science: Edward Jenner
   
Germs can also enter the body in other ways besides in the food that we eat. Some germs get into our bodies in air that we breathe. Germs from surfaces that we touch can get on our hands and then into our eyes, nose, or mouth. We can protect our bodies from many illnesses caused by germs that we cannot see.
   
Edward Jenner was one scientist who studied a process called vaccination. In the late 1700s, Dr. Jenner figured out that exposing people to small amounts of mild germs could make their bodies able to fight off more dangerous germs. Now there are vaccines to prevent many illnesses.

   
   
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Click on this link to move forward to Module F, Lessons 21 – 30
   

      
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