Nice model that students can make themselves

From past experience, I have noticed that students do not understand the cyclic nature of plate tectonics. They tend to think of present day Earth as an end product. My earth science student... See More

From past experience, I have noticed that students do not understand the cyclic nature of plate tectonics. They tend to think of present day Earth as an end product. My earth science students are testing over plate tectonics tomorrow. I think I will use this activity as a reinforcement of everything that they have learned throughout the unit. It is a simple activity that can be expounded on with online map models that predict the future movement of the continents.

Good models to explain a complicated process

The article presents a physical model and direct instruction lesson to assist students in developing an understanding of both Wilson Cycles and the nature of sea-floor spreading. The website... See More

The article presents a physical model and direct instruction lesson to assist students in developing an understanding of both Wilson Cycles and the nature of sea-floor spreading. The website referred to for reference materials and information has quite a bit of useful materials, but the information specific to this article is not clearly marked and will take time to find, I have been looking for 20 minutes and I am not sure I located it - although I DID locate a number of other useful resources! This article and lesson are appropriate for 10-16 geology students, the concepts could be introduced to 7-9 but the abstract nature of the subject would limit full understanding for most of those students. I did not give it a 5 for the difficulty in locating the resources, not because it is not inquiry because I agree with the author that direct instruction provides a basis for future inquiry.