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Title & Description | English | More Ideas and Video |
Banana benders
Using a banana to simulate geological structures |
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Beach, river, dune, mountain, plain - what layers might be preserved here?
A discussion on what evidence might be preserved in rocks from different environments |
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Blow up your own volcano!
Demonstrate the importance of gases in volcanic eruptions |
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Breaking up - classroom freeze-thaw weathering
howing how freezing and thawing can break porous rocks in the classroom |
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Bubble-mania
The bubbling clues to magma viscosity and eruptions |
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Bucket for a pothole: visualising past processes by calculation (ELI+)
Modelling river pothole-formation by calculation – thinking through the assumptions |
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Catastrophic processes: What catastrophic natural processes affected your region in the geological past?
Use the evidence in your local region to interpret dramatic geological events |
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Changing coastlines
Investigating how wave erosion, transportation and deposition can change the shapes of coastlines |
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Collapsing volcanoes - cauldron subsidence (ELI+)
Forming circular ‘cauldron subsidence’ in jelly ‘volcanoes’ |
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Continental jigsaw puzzle (ELI+)
Can you reassemble a supercontinent from a ‘jigsaw puzzle’? |
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Continental split - the opening of the Atlantic Ocean
Modelling how the continents moved, from Pangaea to today |
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Continents in collision (ELI+)
Modelling processes at a destructive (convergent) plate margin |
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Cracking apart (ELI+)
Simulating the weathering or rocks in a desert environment |
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Cracking the clues
Making your own cracking clues to the Earth’s past |
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Crystallisation in a pudding dish
Simulating the formation and growth of crystal lattices |
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Danger - quicksands!
Why do some rocks give way when it rains hard? |
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Deformed Trilobites
Using fossils to estimate the distortion of rocks |
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Did the continents move for you? (ELI+)
Plotting the movement of continents using apparent polar wandering curves |
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Dust bowl
Investigating wind erosion |
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Earth time jigsaw puzzle
Plot the moving continents, from the past to the future |
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Evidence from the deep freeze
Photographs of glacial and periglacial landscapes |
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Exploring current flows through straits
Testing the L. F. Marsili model of Bosphorus currents (1680) |
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Failing slopes
Modelling how rock cliffs and slopes can collapse |
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Faults in a MarsTM Bar
Pulling apart a MarsTM Bar to model a divergent plate margin |
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Fluids, friction and failure
How can unseen fluids affect the movement along faults and glacier beds? |
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From folds to crustal shortening: visualising past processes by calculation (ELI+)
Modelling folding by calculation – thinking through the assumptions |
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From river sediment to stripy rocks
Modelling the build up of different layers of sediment as seen in sedimentary rocks |
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Grinding and gouging
How moving ice can grind away rocks |
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Heat transfer - The heat is on
Modelling the movement of heat from the Earth’s core outwards |
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Himalayas in 30 seconds!
Making a miniature fold mountain range in an empty box |
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Hotspots (ELI+)
Modelling the movement of a plate across the globe |
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How can storms affect erosion rates?
Predict what will happen to a landscape if it is affected by a storm |
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How do sedimentary beds form? – and why can we see them?
Demonstrating how the beds in sedimentary rocks are deposited |
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Ice power (ELI+)
Freezing water in a syringe to measure expansion |
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Ice-thickness from scratch: visualising past processes by calculation (ELI+)
Modelling glacial striation-formation by calculation – thinking through the assumptions |
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Igneous rocks: Why do igneous rocks have different crystal sizes? (ELI+)
Simulating crystallisation from a melt at different rates of cooling |
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Isostasy 1 (ELI+)
Modelling the state of ‘balance’ of the Earth’s outer layers |
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Isostasy 2 (ELI+)
‘Bouncing back’ after the ice |
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Isostasy - “Hooray and up she rises!”
How a rising mountain chain can reveal its hidden secrets |
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James Hutton - or ‘Mr. Rock Cycle’? (ELI+)
Thinking towards the rock cycle, the Hutton way |
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Karstic scenery - in 60 seconds
Modelling the chemical weathering of limestone |
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LegoTM method of showing weathering, erosion, transportation and deposition
Using LegoTM bricks to demonstrate sedimentary processes |
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Magnetic stripes (ELI+)
Modelling the symmetrical magnetic pattern of the rocks of the sea floor |
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“Mantle plume” in a beaker – but not driving plates (ELI+)
Mantle plumes ‘yes’ – but convection currents driving plates, probably ‘No’ |
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Margarine mountain-building
Making mountains every time you make a sandwich |
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Melting and boiling - the influence of pressure (ELI+)
How does a reduction in pressure lower melting and boiling points? |
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Merry waves - all year round (ELI+)
Modelling how the energy of seismic waves is transmitted |
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Metamorphic aureole in a tin (ELI+)
Investigate what controls the changes in temperature around an igneous intrusion |
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Metamorphism - that’s Greek for ‘change of shape’ isn’t it?
What changes can we expect when rocks are put under great pressure in the Earth? |
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Mighty river in a small gutter: Investigating small-scale sedimentary processes AND modelling mighty rivers
The ‘Mighty River in a small gutter’ Earthlearningidea activity used at different scales |
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Mighty river in a small gutter
Sediments on the move |
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Model a spreading ocean floor offset by transform faults
A model of the transform fault ‘steps’ in oceanic ridges and their magnetic stripes |
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Modelling by hand ‘when the youngest rock is not on top’
Illustrating how rock sequences can have older rocks on top of younger one |
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Modelling Earth stresses with your hands
Hand modelling of compression, tension and shear in the Earth |
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Modelling faulting – by hand
Using your hands to demonstrate different fault features |
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Modelling folding – by hand
Using your hands to demonstrate different fold features |
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Modelling right way up or upside down? - modelling anti- and synforms by hand
Use your hands to show how the beds in folds can be the right way up or inverted |
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Modelling remote sensing geophysics (ELI+)
Using a mock gravitometer and magnetometer set up in the classroom |
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Modelling unconformity – by hand
Using your hands to demonstrate how unconformities form |
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Ocean ridge: Which is the fastest spreading oceanic ridge?
A map-based activity to find the most active oceanic spreading ridge |
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Partial melting - simple process, huge global impact (ELI+)
How partial melting, coupled with plate tectonics, has changed the chemistry of our planet |
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Partial melting model and real rock (ELI+)
Comparing a model with reality to develop understanding of the partial melting process |
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Plate driving mechanisms: ‘All models are wrong’ - but some are really wrong
Many textbook diagrams of plate-driving forces have arrows in the wrong places |
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Plate margins and movement by hand
Modelling plate margins and plate movement with your hands |
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Plate riding (ELI+)
Role-play plate-surfing to ask: ‘How is the plate you live on moving now?’ |
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Plate tectonics through the window (ELI+)
What might you see through a window or porthole at an active plate margin? |
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Rock cycle at your fingertips
Modelling the rock cycle with your fingers |
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Rock cycle and plate tectonics: The deep rock cycle explained by plate tectonics: lithification
A model showing how plate tectonics can explain sediments becoming sedimentary rocks |
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Rock cycle and plate tectonics: The deep rock cycle explained by plate tectonics: deformation and metamorphism
A model showing how plate tectonics can explain metamorphism and rock-deformation |
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Rock, rattle and roll
Investigating the resistance of rocks to erosion by shaking in a plastic container |
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Rock resistance - When are soft rocks tough, and hard rocks weak?
A discussion about the toughness/resistance of rocks in different places |
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Rolling, hopping, floating and invisibly moving along
Investigating how sediment is transported by water |
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Salt of the Earth
Who can make the biggest salt crystal? |
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Sandcastles and slopes
What makes sandcastles and slopes collapse? |
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Sand ripple marks in a tank
How symmetrical ripple marks form in sand |
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Sand ripple marks in a washbowl
How asymmetrical ripple marks form in sand |
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Sedimentary structures - cross-bedding and ancient currents
Using cross bedding to find the directions of ancient currents |
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Sedimentary structures - cross-bedding and ‘way-up’
Using cross bedding to determine the way-up of a bed of sedimentary rock |
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Sedimentary structures - graded bedding
Make your own graded bed - one depositional event, but with coarse to fine sediment |
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Sedimentary structures - imbrication
Which way did the river flow? |
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Sedimentary structures - load casts
Interpreting odd bumps on the bases of beds |
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Sedimentary structures - make your own cross-bedding
Classroom activities to make and explain how cross-bedding forms |
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Sedimentary structures - which sedimentary structures can you make?
Making sedimentary structures in the classroom using simple apparatus and materials |
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Sedimentary structures - sole marks
Evidence from the base of a sedimentary bed |
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See how they run
Investigate why some lavas flow further and more quickly than others |
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Shell shake - survival of the toughest
Why is the fossil record incomplete? |
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Squeezed out of shape
Detecting the distortion after rocks have been affected by Earth movements |
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Swiss roll surgery
Investigating geological structures and their outcrops using sponge rolls |
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Teacher - ‘What’s the difference between weathering and erosion?’
Addressing common misconceptions about weathering and erosion |
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Unfair ‘build your own crystal’ race (ELI+)
A crystal building ‘race’ showing the greater the time available, the larger the crystals |
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UPDATE: Recent research in plate tectonics
UPDATE: Follow the Joides Resolution research ship at sea |
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Valley in 30 seconds - pulling rocks apart
Investigating faulting in an empty box |
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View from above: living tectonism
What was it like to be there – on top of a mountain-building collision? |
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Visualising plunging folds - with your hands and a piece of paper
Using your hands and folded/torn paper to show the patterns made by plunging folds |
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Volcano and dykes/jelly and cream - radial dykes (ELI+)
Intruding cream radial ‘dykes’ into jelly ‘volcanoes’ until they erupt |
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Volcano in the lab (ELI+)
Modelling igneous processes in wax and sand |
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Wandering continents
What evidence enables us to reconstruct the ancient supercontinent of Pangaea? |
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Weathering limestone - with my own breath! (ELI+)
A classroom demonstration of how limestone is weathered |
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Weathering - rocks breaking up and breaking down
Matching pictures and descriptions of weathered rocks with the processes of weathering that formed them |
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Wegener’s ‘Continental drift’ meets Wilson’s ‘Plate tectonics’ (ELI+)
How Wegener’s continental drift evidence matches up with evidence for plate tectonics |
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What drives the plates?
Using a pupil model to demonstrate that slab pull is the main plate-driving force |
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What drives the plates? The evidence
Examine the evidence for the different plate tectonic driving mechanisms |
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What drives the plates? In slab pull, what is it that pulls?
Understanding how slab pull works through examining the data |
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What drives the plates? Modelling slab pull
Modelling and discussing the slab pull plate-driving mechanism in the classroom |
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What was it like to be there? – clues in sediment which bring an environment to life
Bringing a depositional environment to life using evidence from sedimentary structures |
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