I struggle teaching my inside earth/ plate tectonics unit. I don't know if anyone else feels the same, but I believe that it is one of the hardest units that I teach as it requires abstract thinking, and there are not many lab investigations that accompany it. This year, I tried a new activity where students worked cooperatively to create a scale model of Earth's layers. I was nervous at first, because I knew that it was going to be challenging for students and require them to "think outside the box". However, I was also excited to challenge them and hoped that they would rise to the occasion.
I purchased this book last year. It is a bit pricey, but I have done a few of the activities with my students so far and loved them. AIMS has many other math and science books for all ages. I have been saving my money to try to buy a few more of the books for next year.
For this activity, I started by placing students in teams of four. Each team was given four geologist clue cards with all of the required information to create one "slice" of the inside of the earth. They used the clues to determine lengths of each layer using a scale of 1 cm= 1,000 km and all of the information that they used to create labels for each layer. Additionally, they used math to figure the size angle they needed to create their piece of the circle and then created them using a protractor and a compass made from paper clips. Each layer was then made using the same paper clip compass. However, each layer required a different number of paper clips to create the scale size for each layer.
Here are some of the pictures of how they turned out:
I was very happy with the results and felt that all of my students worked hard in the end, despite A LOT of complaining the first day (It took 3 days because of weather delays).
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