Landforms

Information about different landforms that can be found on Earth – like mountains, valleys, deltas, etc. – and their formation.

Plate Tectonics

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Videos:

National Geographic Plate Tectonics

Questions:

  1. What did the Tharp-Heezen Map show?
  2. What is the asthenosphere?
  3. How is the Mid-Ocean Ridge formed? What kind of boundary is the Mid-Ocean Ridge?
  4. How was Iceland formed? What was it before?
  5. There are two types of convergent boundaries (where plates come together). How are they different?
  6. In Cyprus, what was discovered at the plate boundaries between the African plate and the Eurasian plate? How did this happen?

Bill Nye Video: Earth’s Crust

Video Question Sheet

Interactive Websites:

More Videos

 

Building an Online Volcano

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In the science lab this week, grade levels TK-3 were learning about volcanoes. For 2nd and 3rd grade students, we had a demonstration of the creation of new gas within a closed system (bottle volcano explorerwith a balloon over it) and we related that demonstration to what happens with volcanoes. I may use this same demonstration for TK-1st next week.

The information and vocabulary were more focused on for 2nd and 3rd grade, while 4th and 5th were still focusing on the tectonic plates.

The website that students might be interested in is this one: Discovery Kids Volcano Explorer.

On this website, students can change the thickness of the lava and the amount of gas and discover what type of volcano those conditions might make, and also what type eruption it causes.

Vocabulary introduced (in no particular order):

  • crust*
  • lava vs. magma*
  • mantle*
  • eruption*
  • ocean floor
  • lava flow
  • fire fountain
  • viscosity
  • stratovolcano
  • shield volcano
  • cinder cone
  • caldera
  • lava tube
  • pyroclastic flow
  • plume
  • ash
  • lahar
  • debris
  • landslide
  • tectonic plates

*terms that I want are the primary ones I want them to know