Earthquakes and Plate Tectonics

Today's lesson will be on earthquakes and plate tectonics! This will be a two day lesson, with about an hour of instruction each day. In order to understand earthquakes, students must understand plate tectonics. Thus, the lessons must be back to back. We will begin with plate tectonics. As a class, we will go through the interactive activity. We will reach a point in the activity where we finish learning about continental shift. To end the day, we will watch Colliding Continents. Students will complete a tectonic plate boundary map for homework. The next day we will begin with different types of faults! They will explore and grade their own homework by using the interactive boundary activity. They will continue the activity by exploring what occurs at different types of faults (Earthquakes). We will have a short in class discussion about earthquakes. Because we live in Southern California, earthquakes are a part of everyday life. We will go over what to do in case of an earthquake, and then we will watch a short video about the Richter scale. Homework will be to: explore the USGS Latest Earthquakes website, and to log 2 nearby earthquakes and their magnitude, and an earthquake worksheet.

Learning Objectives: Students will learn about early Earth and the origins of plate tectonics movement. They will learn why the plates move, and what the Earth's continents used to look like. They will learn about different types of plate boundaries, and their respective seismological activity. They will also learn what to do in case of an earthquake.