Exploring Plate Tectonics and its Role in Land Uplift
This unit will introduce students to tectonic plates. Students will develop questions after viewing satellite images showing uplift along the coast of New Zealand from 2010 to 2016. Throughout the unit, students will analyze pieces of evidence to answer their questions and eventually come to understand tectonic plates’ role in causing uplift in land through mountain formation and earthquakes.
The Earth’s crust or lithosphere is made up of giant plates that shift and move on top of the slow moving mantle. The plates are always slowly shifting and over millions and millions of years this leads to the formation of many of the geological features of Earth like volcanoes and mountain ranges.
Where the plates meet, different boundaries are formed: divergent, convergent, and transform. Divergent boundaries are where the plates are moving apart from each other. These are most often found at ocean floors. Convergent boundaries occur where plates are pushing towards each other and transform boundaries occur where plates slide next to each other. The pushing of these plates against each other leads to an increase in stored energy and pressure. When this energy is released, the plates move quickly in a short amount of time. This is what happens when we experience an earthquake.
Students will model the motion of the plates at the different boundary types and learn to see how the moving of the plates shape our planet.
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Students will engage in a STEM challenge to design a truck powered by a chemical reaction that will have to stop within a specific drop-off zone. Teams will be challenged with various payloads to earn bonus points if they can stop in the drop-off zone.
