Use these targets, vocabulary, rubrics, examples, and score sheet with the instructor's approved lesson and procedure. This is an assessment companion, not a complete lesson or safety authorization.
Student lessons, data, and worked answers: Unit 04 learning pathway.
The student demonstrates the following:
Five science criteria plus separately reported integration (Page 3).
Build a model that honors relative sizes and distances.
The student reasons from orbits and gravity aloud (Page 4).
Dated sketches of the visible planets kept across weeks.
You are making a decision, not adding up points. For each criterion, decide whether the work is Developing, Proficient, or Mastery — the column language tells you which. A criterion counts as mastered only when the student can both build the model and justify the orbital reasoning behind it. Each student has three tokens per term; each token retries one rubric criterion. Approved accommodations, equipment failures, and approved absences are handled separately and do not consume these tokens.
Accept listed synonyms; use the distinction column to resolve near-matches.
| Canonical answer | Accepted synonyms | Common confusion / discriminator |
|---|---|---|
| Worlds & small bodies | ||
| Terrestrial planet | rocky inner world | Small and dense; Mercury through Mars |
| Giant planet | gas or ice giant | Large and low-density; Jupiter through Neptune |
| Kuiper belt | icy outer ring | Home of comets and dwarf planets beyond Neptune |
| Orbits & formation | ||
| Kepler's laws | ellipse, equal areas, period–distance | Govern orbital motion; orbits are ellipses, not circles |
| Ellipse | oval orbit | The Sun sits at one focus, not the center |
| Gravity | the force that binds orbits | Keeps planets falling around the Sun, not flying off |
| Solar nebula | collapsing gas-and-dust cloud | The disk the whole system formed from |
| Orrery | scale model of the system | Honors relative sizes and distances, not a tidy row |
| Criterion | Developing | Proficient | Mastery |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terrestrial vs. giant planets & small bodies | Cannot distinguish planet types or name the small bodies. | Sorts planets loosely but muddles moons, asteroids, comets, and the Kuiper belt. | Compares terrestrial and giant planets by composition and density; locates moons, asteroids, comets, and Kuiper-belt objects. |
| Orbital motion (Kepler & gravity) | Thinks every orbit has constant speed. | Names a law but omits its conditions. | Explains elliptical motion and changing speed; uses the assigned period or mass model with semimajor axis, correct units, and stated assumptions. |
| Scale model & the orrery | Has no sense of the solar system's true scale. | Builds a model but ignores relative sizes and distances. | Builds or interprets a scale model — an orrery — that honors relative sizes and distances. |
| Formation from the solar nebula | Cannot say how the system formed. | Names “a cloud of gas” but not the sorting by distance. | Explains nebular formation, inner/outer composition differences, and how remaining material and later collisions or capture help explain small bodies. |
| Observation technique & the journal | Cannot find a planet in the sky and leaves the journal blank. | Spots a planet but keeps thin, undated notes. | Locates planets and the Moon with binoculars, telescope, and star charts and logs their motion across weeks in a dated journal. |
| Integration (cross-domain) | Makes no supported connection between the source and the science. | Uses the source but needs help connecting evidence, writing, or limitations to the science. | Independently connects History, Reading, and Writing using a cited source, appropriate evidence, a limitation, and a scientific explanation. |
The split between Proficient and Mastery is scale and shape over order: not reciting the planets, but honoring the vast gaps and the elliptical orbits. Ask “if Earth were this marble, where would Neptune be?”
Read these before you grade. They show what Mastery and Developing actually sound like, plus the edge cases where you should coach rather than decide on the spot.
Student: ______________________________________ Date: _______________ Guide: _________________________
| # | Criterion | Decision | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Terrestrial vs. giant planets & small bodies | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 2 | Orbital motion (Kepler & gravity) | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 3 | Scale model & the orrery | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 4 | Formation from the solar nebula | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 5 | Observation technique & the journal | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 6 | Integration (cross-domain) | Dev / Prof / Mast |
☐ No ☐ Yes — for criterion: __________
Tokens left this term after this session (choose one): ☐ 3 ☐ 2 ☐ 1 ☐ None left
Dev = Developing · Prof = Proficient · Mast = Mastery · Unsure between two levels? Circle the lower one and note what a re-do would need.