Recently in Plate Tectonics Category
Discovering Plate Boundaries, a data-rich exercise based on the jigsaw concept that helps students discover the processes that occur at plate boundaries through four different maps: earthquake location and depth, location of recent volcanic activity, seafloor age, and topography and bathymetry. Here is an article from the Journal of Geoscience Education that describes the same activity (PDF file).
DLESE Teaching Box: Evidence for Plate Tectonics, an online assembly of interrelated learning concepts that focuses on finding the evidence for plate tectonics using digital resources, education standards, and comprehensive lesson plans . It is meant to provide an inquiry-based exploration of each of three lines of evidence: (1) fossil distribution, (2) locations, depths, and types of earthquakes, and (3) locations and types of volcanoes For each line of evidence there is a map showing supporting concepts and their associated standards, pre-conceptions, lessons organized into teachable units, and a section describing the resources used in the box for ready reference. Appropriate for middle school.
Discover Our Earth, from Cornell University, these educational web pages provide a wide range of information related to the Earth sciences, accompanied by images, graphs, maps, and movies. In addition, you will find two Java-based, interactive data analysis and mapping tools that will allow customized access to a large variety of Earth science data sets that are used by research scientists. Students activities and exercises as well as lesson plans designed for teachers are available at this site.
DLESE Teaching Box: Evidence for Plate Tectonics, an online assembly of interrelated learning concepts that focuses on finding the evidence for plate tectonics using digital resources, education standards, and comprehensive lesson plans . It is meant to provide an inquiry-based exploration of each of three lines of evidence: (1) fossil distribution, (2) locations, depths, and types of earthquakes, and (3) locations and types of volcanoes For each line of evidence there is a map showing supporting concepts and their associated standards, pre-conceptions, lessons organized into teachable units, and a section describing the resources used in the box for ready reference. Appropriate for middle school.
Discover Our Earth, from Cornell University, these educational web pages provide a wide range of information related to the Earth sciences, accompanied by images, graphs, maps, and movies. In addition, you will find two Java-based, interactive data analysis and mapping tools that will allow customized access to a large variety of Earth science data sets that are used by research scientists. Students activities and exercises as well as lesson plans designed for teachers are available at this site.
This Dynamic Earth: The Story of Plate Tectonics, a U.S. Geological Survey online publication
GeoMapApp, relies on the internet to access a rich content of information for physical oceanography, paleoclimates, geochemistry, geology, seabed sediment and rock compositions, ocean crust age, spreading rates, bathymetry, and sediment thickness. One can select and view seismic reflection, gravity, magnetic and topographic profiles from tens of millions of kilometers of ocean surveys dating back to the 1960s. There are dedicated interfaces to explore the results of 40 years of ocean floor drilling, earthquake locations, magnitudes and epicenter depths, and seabed photographs from submersibles, remotely operated vehicles and towed camera sleds. The image in the map window can be saved or sent directly to a printer. Tabular datasets are selectable with a lasso tools and can be manipulated in interactive graphs. Gridded datsets can be sun-shaded from selected directions and illumination angles and contoured. Users may import grids and tables from their own file system and from Web Mapping and Web Feature Services and take advantage all of the visualization capability of the application.
GeoMapApp, relies on the internet to access a rich content of information for physical oceanography, paleoclimates, geochemistry, geology, seabed sediment and rock compositions, ocean crust age, spreading rates, bathymetry, and sediment thickness. One can select and view seismic reflection, gravity, magnetic and topographic profiles from tens of millions of kilometers of ocean surveys dating back to the 1960s. There are dedicated interfaces to explore the results of 40 years of ocean floor drilling, earthquake locations, magnitudes and epicenter depths, and seabed photographs from submersibles, remotely operated vehicles and towed camera sleds. The image in the map window can be saved or sent directly to a printer. Tabular datasets are selectable with a lasso tools and can be manipulated in interactive graphs. Gridded datsets can be sun-shaded from selected directions and illumination angles and contoured. Users may import grids and tables from their own file system and from Web Mapping and Web Feature Services and take advantage all of the visualization capability of the application.
Plate tectonic animations:
- U.S. Geological Survey and National Park Service plate tectonics animations
- University of California Museum of Paleontology Geology: plate tectonics
- University of California Santa Barbara's Education Multimedia Visualization Center
- PBS - A Science Odyssey