Plate tectonics
Plate tectonics - whole concept:-
• Partial melting - simple process, huge global impact (ELI+)
• Partial melting model and real rock (ELI+)
• Plate riding (ELI+)
• Plate tectonics through the window (ELI+)
• Plate margins and movement by hand
• Heat transfer - The heat is on
Evidence and explanation for the theory:-
• Continental jigsaw puzzle (ELI+)
• Earth time jigsaw puzzle
• Geobattleships (ELI+)
• Wegener’s ‘Continental drift’ meets Wilson’s ‘Plate tectonics’ (ELI+)
• Did the continents move for you? (ELI+)
Mechanism:-
• Bouncing, bending, breaking
• Mantle plume in a beaker (ELI+)
• What drives the plates?
• Plate driving mechanisms
Constructive or divergent plate margins:-
• Mantle plume in a beaker (ELI+)
• Magnetic stripes (ELI+)
• Model a spreading ocean offset by transform faults (ELI+)
• Continental split - the opening of the Atlantic Ocean
• Faults in a MarsTM Bar
• Fastest spreading ocean
Destructive or convergent plate margins:-
• Continents in collision (ELI+)
• Himalayas in 30 seconds
• Margarine mountain-building
• Banana benders
• Swiss roll surgery
• View from above: living tectonism
• From folds to crustal shortening: visualising past processes by calculation (ELI+)
Plate tectonics explains deep rock cycle-
• Deep rock cycle explained by plate tectonics: lithification
• Deep rock cycle explained by plate tectonics: deformation and metamorphism
Resources
• Fracking: Recipe for the perfect fracking fluid
• Make your own oil and gas reservoir
• Trapped! Why can’t oil and gas escape from their underground prison?
• Where shall we drill for oil?
• Where does offshore oil come from?
• Interactive hydrothermal mineralisation (ELI+)
• Riches in the river
• Gold prospectors
• A smelter on a stick
• Which power source? - solving the crisis in Kiama
• Power through the window
• Rock power: geothermal power simulations (ELI+)
• Quarry through the window - what would you see, what would you not see?
• Why is the Dead Sea dead?
• Make and use your own Plaster of Paris
Rocks
• Rock detective - rocky clues to the past
• From ‘Rock detective’ to ‘Laying out the rock cycle’
• Modelling for rocks - what’s hidden inside and why?
• Space within - the porosity of rocks
• Does my rock hold water and will water flow through it?
• What was it like to be there - in the rocky world?
• Found in the ground: sorted!
• ‘Rockery 1’ - rock game
• Rock Explorers (ELI Early years)
• Design your own rocky play-park
• Rock grain cut out
• When are soft rocks tough, and hard rocks weak?
• Recreating the rocks
Rock Cycle
Rock cycle - whole concept:-
• Rock cycle through the window
• Rock cycle in wax
• Laying out the rock cycle: product and process
• From ‘Rock detective’ to ‘Laying out the rock cycle’
• Rock cycle at your fingertips
• Not misunderstanding the rock cycle
• James Hutton or ‘Mr. Rock Cycle’
• ‘Rockery 2’ - rock cycle game
• Sand on a sill
Weathering:-
• Weathering / erosion - misconceptions
• Weathering - rocks breaking up and breaking down
• Cracking apart
• Weathering limestone - with my own breath! (ELI+)
• Karstic scenery - in 60 seconds
• Will my gravestone last?
• Ice power (ELI+)
• Fieldwork: Questions for any rock face - weathering
• LegoTM bricks and sedimentary processes
Erosion:-
• Weathering / erosion - misconceptions
• Rock, rattle and roll
• When are soft rocks tough, and hard rocks weak?
• Mighty river in a small gutter
• Investigating small-scale sedimentary processes AND modelling mighty rivers
• Changing coastlines
• Dust bowl
• Grinding and gouging
• Why does soil get washed away?
• Fieldwork: Questions for any rock face - erosion
• Bucket for a pothole: visualising past processes by calculation (ELI+)
• LegoTM bricks and sedimentary processes
Transportation:-
• Rolling, hopping, floating and invisibly moving along
• Mighty river in a small gutter
• Investigating small-scale sedimentary processes AND modelling mighty rivers
• Dust bowl
• LegoTM bricks and sedimentary processes
Deposition:-
• Mighty river in a small gutter
• Investigating small-scale sedimentary processes AND modelling mighty rivers
• Dust bowl
• From river sediment to stripy rocks
• LegoTM bricks and sedimentary processes
• What layers are preserved?
Sediments to sedimentary rock:-
• Make your own rock
• From river sediment to stripy rocks
• What layers are preserved?
Sedimentary structures:-
• Cross bedding and ancient currents
• Graded bedding
• Imbrication
• Load casts
• Mudcracks - cracking the clues
• Sand ripple marks in a tank
• Sand ripple marks in a washbowl
• Sole marks
• What was it like to be there? - clues in sediment which bring an environment to life
• Cross-bedding and ‘way-up’
Metamorphism:-
• Metamorphism - that’s Greek for ‘change of shape’ isn’t it?
• Squeezed out of shape
• Metamorphic aureole in a tin (ELI+)
Igneous processes:-
• Blow up your own volcano
• ‘Crystallisation’ in a pudding dish
• See how they run
• Unfair ‘build your own crystal’race
• Volcano in the lab
• Why do igneous rocks have different crystal sizes?
• Partial melting - simple process, huge global impact (ELI+)
• Partial melting model and real rock (ELI+)
Uplift and fold mountains:-
• Banana benders
• Himalayas in 30 seconds
• Margarine mountain-building
• Swiss roll surgery
• View from above: living tectonism
• From folds to crustal shortening: visualising past processes by calculation (ELI+)
• Modelling by hand ‘when the youngest rock is not on top’
• Modelling Earth stresses with your hands
• Modelling folding - by hand
• Right way up or upside down? - modelling anti- and synforms by hand
• Visualising plunging folds - with your hands and a piece of paper
Deep rock cycle explained by plate tectonics-
• Deep rock cycle explained by plate tectonics: lithification
• Deep rock cycle explained by plate tectonics: deformation and metamorphism
Soils
• Make your own soil
• Soil doughnuts
• Soil layers puzzle
• Permeability of soils - ‘The great soil race’
• Why does soil get washed away?
• Darwin’s ‘big soil idea’
• Questions for any rock face 3: soil
• Is there life in this soil sample?
Structural geology
• Himalayas in 30 seconds
• Valley in 30 seconds!
• Margarine mountain-building
• Banana benders
• Continents in collision (ELI+)
• Geological mapwork from models 5: folded geology on block models (ELI+)
• Opengeoscience 2: tilted and folded rocks (ELI+)
• Swiss roll surgery
• View from above
• From folds to crustal shortening: visualising past processes by calculation (ELI+)
• Modelling folding - by hand
• Right way up or upside down? - modelling anti- and synforms by hand
• Modelling faulting - by hand
• Modelling by hand ‘when the youngest rock is not on top’
• Visualising plunging folds - with your hands and a piece of paper
• Fieldwork: Interactive re-creation
• Fieldwork: Questions for any rock face 8 - faults
• Fieldwork: Questions for any rock face 7 - tilted or folded rocks
Structure of the Earth
• From clay balls to the structure of the Earth (ELI+)
• Bouncing, bending, breaking
• Magnetic Earth (ELI+)
• From an orange to the whole Earth
• A core activity
• Journey to the centre of the Earth - on a toilet roll
• Isostasy 1; modelling the state of ‘balance’ of the Earth’s outer layers (ELI+)
Volcanoes
• Blow up your own volcano!
• Bubble-mania
• Party time for volcanoes!
• Take a ‘Chance’ on the volcano erupting
• The balloon goes up at Krakatoa
• See how they run
• Volcano in the lab
• A “mantle plume” in a beaker (ELI+)
• Hotspots (ELI+)
• Volcanoes and dykes / jelly and cream - radial dykes
• Collapsing volcanoes - cauldron subsidence
• Best classroom eruption?
Watery activities
• Changing state - transforming water
• Mini-world water cycle
• Water cycle world
• ‘Tagging’ water molecules (ELI+)
• Cycling water and heat in the lab - and the globe (ELI+)
• Water - a matter of taste or a taste of matter?
• Well, well, well!
• From rain to spring:water from the ground
• Space within - the porosity of rocks
• Modelling for rocks: what’s hidden inside - and why?
• Permeabiity of soils - ‘The great soil race’
• Watery world of underground chemistry (ELI+)
• ‘Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink’
• Watery world game (ELI Early years)
UK examinations
• 16 - 18 years
• 14 - 16 years
Cross-curricular topics
• Geo-art: paintings to sculptures inspired by all things ‘geo’
• Geo-literature: poems and stories inspired by all things ‘geo’
• Earthquakes in art
• Back in time
• Rocks music
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