Cracking Up: Plate Tectonics
STEP Participant home page
Activities
- Discovering Plate Boundaries
Excellent inquiry based activity through which students in upper elementary through college can make observations about the patterns of features on Earth’s surface – and draw conclusions about Earth’s tectonic plates. - Subducting Plate Graphs
In this activity, students create a three-dimensional model of a subducting plate boundary, using earthquake data. - Real Evidence of a Subducting Plate
The objective of this activity is to allow students to manipulate real data and understand how such data is interpreted and used in support of a theory. Students construct a 3D map of seismic data at a subduction zone plate boundary. - Hot Spot Motion
In this activity, students measure the motion of the Pacific Plate using the location and age of islands in the Hawaiian chain - Edible Plate Tectonics
Students use edible materials to model a plate boundary, including the asthenosphere, the plate crusts, and the resulting features from the interaction
Resources
- Plate Tectonics Misconceptions
- Discovering Plate Boundaries powerpoint
- A Brief History of a Unifying Theory powerpoint
- Plate Tectonics Resources List
- Step Notes for Plate Tectonics
