Layers:
Lithosphere
Activities: Mini Posters, BrainPop Video, Music Videos
Topics: Continental Drift, Faults, Plate Tectonic, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Earth Structure, Seismic Waves.
Earth has three basic layers: Core, mantle and crust. Crust is the layer that we live on. This is the hard layer under grass, dirt, sand and water. It is thick in the continent and in the ocean basins. Mantle is made up of mixture of element. It is deep and massive, goes down from the bottom of the crust. The upper mantle is soft and plastic which allow the plates move around. The lower mantle is solid and hot. The center of the earth is core, outer core and inner core. Outer core made of molten iron and nickel. It is liquid layer with 2,300 Km thick. Inner core is 5,100 Km below the surface. It spins and along with the convection current in the mantle. Inner core is a hard ball that made of iron.
Asthnosphere
Activities: Foldables & Mini-Quiz,Demonstration Lab
Topics: Continental Drift, Faults
Alfred Wegener thought of the continental drift. He thought that all continents were used to be one supercontinent called Pangaea. It is like a puzzle when you put all continents together. Fossils, rock record and mountain rangers are the evidences of this theory, they can be found all over the world. The surface of land has chance to occur faults. Normal fault is when land moves downward. Reverse/Thrust fault is when land moves upward. Strike-slip fault is when land slide past each other horizontally.
Mantle
Activities: Photographic evidence, Exploration Labs
Topics: Plate boundaries, Subduction Zone, Fault zone, Hot spot, Tsunami, Earthquake
Earth’s crust is broke up into minor plates. Because of the mantle under the crust, plates move around on top of the mantle. When plates moving, they can slide apart, collide together or horizontally past each other. The boundaries where plates meet may cause volcanoes, mountains, trenches and earthquakes. They are also called faults. Because plates build up pressure in side rocks, rocks broke up and shift to release the pressure. This is earthquake. Earthquake has three types of waves. They are P-wave, S-wave and L-wave. earthquake can bring huge damage to the environment. It is serious disaster. Scientists use seismograph which is a machine to measure how big and how long of the quakes.
2. Critical Thinking Question
I agree with the theory of plate tectonics. If we put all continents together, they are look like puzzle. Alfred Wegener thought of the continental drift that all continents were used to be one supercontinent called Pangaea. After millions years, Earth’s crust broke up in large pieces called plates. Plates are moving few centimeters away from each other year by year. Scientists found that rocks record and fossils in continents have similarity. That’s why there are seven continents on the earth.
Because of the convection current, the heat in the mantle forces plates are moving on top of the mantle in different direction. This causes the ocean floor spreading from the center. The boundaries of plates create geological activities when they against each other, such as volcanoes, earthquakes, fault, subduction zone and mountain building.
3. Reflection
1. What did you enjoy most about this project and why?
I enjoyed doing the convection current lab and making the photographic evidence video. I can understand better about how the convection current works through doing the lab. And this is the first time that I made video.
2. What was most challenging for you during this project and why?
This project was not really challenging for me. All I need was have enough time to finish them.
3. What new skills did you learn from doing this project?
I learned to make video and use the lab scale that used to weight stuff from doing this project.
4. Is there anything that you could have done to improve any of your work? Explain.
I could have re-do the lab.There was a human error when we were measuring the basalt and garnet rocks.I could have measured another rocks to see if their result are the same.
