Moving Ground: Plate Tectonics

Learning Objectives

• Describe Earth's layers and explain that the crust is broken into moving tectonic plates.
• Explain the evidence for continental drift and how convection currents move the plates.
• Identify divergent, convergent and transform boundaries and the landforms and events each one causes.

How to Use This Resource

• Start with slide 1: show a world map and ask students to look at the coastlines of South America and Africa. What do they notice?
• Teach Earth's layers, the evidence for drift, convection and the three boundary types with the slides and the hands-on models in the teacher notes.
• Students complete the worksheet, then use the quiz to check and the homework for practice. Answers are in the answer key.

Classroom Activity Ideas

• Continent puzzle: students cut out the continents from a map and try to fit them together like a puzzle, using fossil symbols as clues.
• Cracker boundaries: use crackers on frosting to model plates moving apart, pushing together and sliding past each other.
• Convection in a cup: put a drop of food coloring in warm water over a cup of ice water and watch the currents move.

Differentiation

Support: give a labeled diagram of Earth's layers and a boundary chart with pictures, and pair students for the cracker model. Challenge: explain why the Pacific Ocean is surrounded by volcanoes (the Ring of Fire), and predict what the map might look like in 50 million years.

Assessment

Worksheet activities and the quiz check Earth's layers, evidence, convection and boundaries (answer key included). The explanation questions and rubric assess using evidence to explain plate movement.

Teacher Tips

Plate movement is very slow, so give a relatable comparison: plates move about as fast as your fingernails grow. Use your two hands as plates whenever you explain a boundary, and have students copy the movement: apart, together, sliding past.

What's Included

• 11-page printable PDF lesson pack: teacher lesson plan with timings, materials and differentiation
• Key vocabulary list (8 words with meanings and examples)
• Student worksheet (6 activities)
• Quiz / assessment (3 parts)
• Homework practice page
• Printable flashcards: 8 A5 picture cards (separate PDF)
• Assessment rubric (4 levels)
• Lesson slides (editable PowerPoint)
• Editable Word version of all student pages
• Complete answer key (also as a separate PDF)

Additional Files

• Lesson Slides (PPTX)
• Editable Student Pages and Lesson Plan (DOCX)
• A5 Flashcards (PDF)
• Answer Key (PDF)

Teacher Reviews