Continental Drift Lesson
Learning Objectives:
Standards:
National Science Education Standards Content Standard D: Lithospheric plates on the scales of continents and oceans constantly move at rates of centimeters per year in response to movements in the mantle.
Lesson Description:
During this lesson, students will use puzzle pieces representing the different continents to model how they originally fit together to form the super continent referred to as Pangea. Then, students will watch a short video showing an artist's conception of how the continents once fit together and how they moved over the course of hundreds of millions of years to end up at their current locations. Then, there will be a short guided reading activity used to explain the historical development of the theory of continental drift. After the reading, students will explore the mechanism behind this plate motion through a video on convection currents. After the video, students will be asked to make connections between the convection currents discussed today with information presented during the previous day's lesson. These connections will be recorded in the students' science journals and collected at the end of class. These will be used as a formative assessment of how well the students understand the connection between the compositional layers of the earth and the convection currents that caused the continents to drift apart to where they are today. This lesson will take two class periods to complete.
As a result of the day's activities, new vocabulary words will be added to the word wall. These may include, but are not limited to, the following: Pangea, continental drift, convection, and convection current.
- Students will be able to explain the theory of continental drift
- Students will be able to describe what causes plate motion
Standards:
National Science Education Standards Content Standard D: Lithospheric plates on the scales of continents and oceans constantly move at rates of centimeters per year in response to movements in the mantle.
Lesson Description:
During this lesson, students will use puzzle pieces representing the different continents to model how they originally fit together to form the super continent referred to as Pangea. Then, students will watch a short video showing an artist's conception of how the continents once fit together and how they moved over the course of hundreds of millions of years to end up at their current locations. Then, there will be a short guided reading activity used to explain the historical development of the theory of continental drift. After the reading, students will explore the mechanism behind this plate motion through a video on convection currents. After the video, students will be asked to make connections between the convection currents discussed today with information presented during the previous day's lesson. These connections will be recorded in the students' science journals and collected at the end of class. These will be used as a formative assessment of how well the students understand the connection between the compositional layers of the earth and the convection currents that caused the continents to drift apart to where they are today. This lesson will take two class periods to complete.
As a result of the day's activities, new vocabulary words will be added to the word wall. These may include, but are not limited to, the following: Pangea, continental drift, convection, and convection current.