Dynamic Earth and Maps

Introduction to Supermarket Science Dynamic Earth Materials

These activities introduce the idea of dynamic Earth—a planet with continuously moving surface.  Kids get to build a mental model of Earth’s interior and reconceptualize continents as fragments of the planet’s outer shell floating on top of the molten interior (a shift from the static and solid representation of Earth as promoted by the classical maps and atlases of the world). Children will create a flip book illustrating continental drift and link the continental positions to geological epochs. The activities introduce the concepts of plate tectonics, volcanism, “Ring of Fire,” planetary evolution, and the effects of large scale geologic transformations have on human populations.

Kids start by considering the history of scientific explorations relating to the above theories. They proceed with building and “exploding” a volcano model. And they will make contour maps of their volcano islands and write fictional stories about the life on that island.

Main Ideas

Research

• Research is the basic tool of well-educated people. While engaging with Supermarket Science Activities, kids learn how to conduct and think about research in general and how to look up basic information about the rock formation, continental movements, the deep geologic history of our planet, and how humans deal with natural disasters in a library or the Internet.

Precision

• Each label, name, or word has a specific meaning that all scientists in the same field understand to mean exactly the same thing.
• Descriptions of objects and events need to be precise enough to limit misunderstanding or misinterpretation by the readers as much as possible.
• Fuzzy thinking” is not allowed!

Logical Thinking

• There two pathways in science: deduction and induction. Deduction is a process that puts together bits of data and evidence to build a theory—it’s bottom up reasoning. Induction is the process that starts with an idea and then looks for data and evidence to support it—it’s top down reasoning.
• Logical reasoning is a formal way of thinking (usually deductive) where each successive thought is built upon the previous one; as long as each link is a chain of logical reasoning is true, the end conclusion is true.

Geological Processes

• Geology is the study of the Earth and its composition. The word “geology” is a compound word, composed of “geo” meaning “Earth” and “logy” meaning “study.” Geology literary means “a study of the Earth.”
• “Ring of Fire” is an imaginary line on the earth atlas connecting the volcanoes on the edges of the continental plates. The ring includes the volcanoes on the west side of South and North Americas, the volcanoes of Alaska, and the volcanoes of Japan and the Pacific Rim. The “center” of this ring is the Hawaiian Archipelago, which itself has a group of active volcanoes.
• Continental drift is a theory about the movement of continents.
• Plate Tectonics is a theory which describes the movements of the Earth’s upper crust. According to this theory, the Earth’s surface is broken into large plates. The position and size of these plates change over very long periods of time. Where these plates rub against each other, there is intense geological activity: earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain building.
• “Hot Spot” is a theory that tries to account for volcanoes that exist in the middle of tectonic plates rather than on the edges. A hot spot is a fixed spot in the Earth’s mantle that, for currently unexplained reasons, is hotter than the surrounding areas. As the continental or oceanic plates move over such spots, a volcano develops. Hawaiian Archipelago is an example of volcanic islands formed over a hot spot.