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 06 learning pathway.
The student demonstrates the following:
Five science criteria plus separately reported integration (Page 3).
Calculate anomalies, rates or fits/proxies at the agreed level.
The student reasons from the evidence aloud (Page 4).
Separate observed CO2, synthetic temperatures and proxy inference.
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 read the record and justify the climate story 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Climate & its drivers | ||
| Climate | long-term pattern | The decades-long average, not any single day's weather |
| Climate zone | climate region | Set by latitude, elevation, currents, and winds together |
| Greenhouse effect | heat-trapping | Keeps Earth livable; not the ozone hole, and not only harmful |
| Carbon & the record | ||
| Carbon cycle | carbon reservoirs | Carbon moves through ocean, atmosphere, rock, and life |
| Proxy | climate proxy | Ice cores, tree rings, sediment — indirect records of past climate |
| Ice core | glacial core | Trapped gas bubbles record past atmosphere and temperature |
| Keeling Curve | CO₂ record | The measured rise of atmospheric CO₂ since 1958 |
| Weather vs. climate | days vs. decades | A cold week is weather, not evidence against a warming climate |
| Criterion | Developing | Proficient | Mastery |
|---|---|---|---|
| Climate quantities | Confuses an anomaly, baseline, rate or weather event. | Calculates with help but omits the time span or provenance. | At the agreed level, defends anomalies, endpoint rates or fitted slopes/residuals with baselines, units and limits. |
| Climate zones & what sets them | Cannot say why one place is a desert and another a rainforest. | Names climate zones but not the factors — latitude, altitude, currents — that set them. | Explains how latitude, elevation, ocean currents, and winds combine to set a region's climate zone. |
| Greenhouse effect & the carbon cycle | Thinks the greenhouse effect is only harmful, or confuses it with the ozone hole. | Describes the greenhouse effect but cannot trace carbon through its reservoirs. | Explains how greenhouse gases trap heat and traces carbon through ocean, atmosphere, rock, and life. |
| Record and proxy reasoning | Calls invented temperatures observations or trends causal proof. | Labels sources but needs help explaining a proxy calibration. | At the agreed level, distinguishes observed CO2, synthetic temperatures and proxy inference, with uncertainty and a causal limitation. |
| Climate-data method | Omits axes, source or baseline. | Labels the graph but cannot explain a changed baseline. | Defends the fresh site transfer and retains source/version, baseline and units; does not infer climate sensitivity from these tables. |
| 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. |
Ask which values are observations and which are synthetic or inferred. A trend is not causal proof; shifting a baseline changes anomalies but not a slope. Do not infer climate sensitivity here.
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 | Climate quantities | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 2 | Climate zones & what sets them | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 3 | Greenhouse effect & the carbon cycle | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 4 | Record and proxy reasoning | Dev / Prof / Mast | |
| 5 | Climate-data method | 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.