Benchmark 4C The Physical Setting: Processes that Shape the Earth

Benchmark 4C
The Physical Setting: Processes that Shape the Earth
Grades 9-12, page 74

Plants alter the earth's atmosphere by removing carbon dioxide from it, using the carbon to make sugars and releasing oxygen. This process is responsible for the oxygen content of the air.

NSES Content Standard D
Earth and Space Science: Structure of the Earth system
Grades 5-8, page 160
The atmosphere is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and trace gases that include water vapor. The atmosphere has different properties at different elevations.

NSES Content Standard D
Earth and Space Science: Structure of the Earth system
Grades 5-8, page 160
Living organisms have played many roles in the earth system, including affecting the composition of the atmosphere, producing some types of rocks, and contributing to the weathering of rocks.

NSES Content Standard D
Earth and Space Science: Origin and evolution of the earth system
Grades 9-12, page 189
Interactions among the solid earth, the oceans, the atmosphere, and organisms have resulted in the ongoing evolution of the earth system. We can observe some changes such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on a human time scale, but many processes such as mountain building and plate movements take place over hundreds of millions of years.

NSES Content Standard D
Earth and Space Science: Origin and evolution of the earth system
Grades 9-12, page 190
Evidence for one-celled forms of life--the bacteria--extends back more than 3.5 billion years. The evolution of life caused dramatic changes in the composition of the Earth's atmosphere, which did not originally contain oxygen.