Unit 15: Plate Tectonics

Unit 15: Plate Tectonics

This unit explains plate tectonics. Students will learn about two violent phenomena in the lithosphere—earthquakes and volcanoes.

Student Goals

• Make a model of Pangaea.
• Know about the theories of continental drift and plate tectonics.
• Identify the layers of the earth and their characteristics.
• Construct a seismic-risk map of the United States.
• Examine the location of the active volcanoes on Earth and identify the Ring of Fire.
• Identify the mid-ocean ridges on a world map.
• Know the features of volcanoes.
• Know the land features of the ocean floor.
• Identify the types of mountains and explain how they are formed.

Unit Focus

• Know that from time to time, major shifts occur in the scientific view of how the world works, but that more often, the changes that take place in the body of scientific knowledge are small modifications of prior knowledge.
• Know how climatic patterns on Earth result from an interplay of many factors (Earth’s topography, its rotation on its axis, solar radiation, the transfer of heat energy where the atmosphere interfaces with lands and oceans, and wind and ocean currents).
• Know that the solid crust of Earth consists of slow-moving, separate plates that float on a denser, molten layer of Earth and that these plates interact with each other, changing the Earth’s surface in many ways (e.g., forming mountain ranges and rift valleys, causing earthquake and volcanic activity, and forming undersea mountains that can become ocean islands).