Plate tectonics is an important concept for students to understand. To help you get started studying plate tectonics in your classroom, I’ve put together this list of eight engaging and hands-on plate tectonics activities and projects to try out in your classroom this year!
Before we dive into these fun tectonic plate activities, let’s review the basics. The theory of plate tectonics is a scientific theory central to the field of geology. This theory explains that the surface of the Earth is broken into large plates that are slowly moving. These plates slide past and over one another. Their motion gradually changes the appearance of Earth’s landmasses and oceans over time. Plate movement also causes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions along plate boundaries. All types of geological phenomena can be tied back to plate tectonic motion!
A note for educators: If you’re an educator planning to teach plate tectonics, try my complete Plate Tectonics Unit! It includes all the printable worksheets, templates, and visual aids you’ll need for studying plate tectonics (plus you’ll support my blog with your purchase! ❤️)
Try building this paper model of Earth’s interior, from my Plate Tectonics Unit.
1. Edible layers of the Earth
Make a model of the layers of the Earth using food! Build an edible core, mantle, and crust! There are many possibilities for foods to use. For example, you could use pancakes, fruit, or frosting to create 2D circles to form the core, mantle, and crust.
Print out a world map and cut out the continents. Try to figure out how the continents might roughly fit together to form the supercontinent of Pangea.
You can also find an oceans and continents printable coloring page on my free resources page. My email newsletter subscribers can access my full free resources collection.
Create a model of the three main boundary types using sandwich cookies. Remove the top layer of the sandwich cookie (lithosphere), break it in half, and place it back on top of the crème (asthenosphere), arranged as a boundary type. This is a popular classroom activity, and there are many free online guides for this activity (e.g., this one from GeographyEducation.org – external link)
4. Identify plate boundaries
Students can plot locations of earthquakes and volcanic activity using a list of coordinates and a map of Earth. This can help them locate plate boundaries, especially along the Ring of Fire. First, read a blog post about different types of tectonic plate boundaries. You may also wish to print out plate tectonics boundary diagrams, such as the ones found in my Plate Tectonics Unit.
Learning about volcanoes? You’ll love the volcano printables within my complete Plate Tectonics Unit.
Build a model of a volcano and create an eruption using baking soda and vinegar. Discuss the tectonic plate boundary typeswhere volcanoes are typically found (e.g., along convergent boundaries with subduction). Expand your volcano learning by reading about the different types of volcanoes in a blog post.
Use toothpicks and marshmallows to design structures. Then simulate an earthquake by placing the structures on a jiggling surface. Try different structures to determine which designs hold up best in simulated earthquakes.
8. Study plate tectonics with Wild Earth Lab
Take your learning to the next level with my complete Plate Tectonics Unit – it has everything you need to teach the Theory of Plate Tectonics in your classroom. It includes worksheets, posters, activities, handouts, and flashcards – all featuring my watercolor science diagrams!
Earth’s lithosphere (surface) is broken into massive, irregularly shaped pieces, called tectonic plates. Some of the plates are so large that they span entire continents. Others are smaller. Tectonic plates sit atop a denser, soft part of the mantle called the asthenosphere. If you need a refresher, view my Layers of the Earth post.
The theory of plate tectonicsis a scientific theory central to the field of geology. This theory explains that the Earth’s surface is broken into large plates that are slowly moving. These plates slide past and over one another. Their motion gradually changes the appearance of Earth’s landmasses and oceans over time and helps drive the rock cycle. Plate movement also causes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions along plate boundaries.
Where two tectonic plates meet is called a boundary. There are three main tectonic plate boundary types. Without further ado, let’s take a look at each of them.
Before we dive in: If you’re an educator planning to teach plate tectonics, great visuals are key to deepening understanding! I think you and your students will love my printable Boundary Type Diagrams, which you can also find within my Plate Tectonics Unit (plus you’ll support my blog with your purchase! ❤️)
At convergent boundaries, two plates move towards one another. There are two convergent boundary subtypes:
Convergent with Subduction
When one or both plates are oceanic plates, the denser plate is subducted, or drawn underneath the less dense plate. This creates volcanic activity, severe earthquakes, and tall coastal mountains or islands.
Convergent without Subduction
Once an oceanic plate fully subducts, two continental plates may converge. Continental plates cannot be subducted. This creates huge inland mountain ranges, like the Himalayas.
2. Divergent Plate Boundary
At divergent boundaries, plates move apart. This allows new crust to form between the plates. Divergent boundaries can happen in the ocean or on continents. You will find volcanic activity and mild earthquakes at divergent boundaries. If the divergent boundary is in an ocean, you may see mid-ocean ridges due to volcanic activity. The volcanic activity can also create islands along this boundary type. Iceland is an example of an island on a divergent boundary.
3. Transform Plate Boundary
At transform boundaries, plates slide past one another. This can happen in oceans or on continents. The sliding motion produces faults with mild to severe earthquakes, such as in the San Andreas region of California. Landscape features, such as mountain ranges or riverbeds, may appear broken and offset due to the sliding of the plates.
Teaching Plate Tectonics:
If you enjoyed the illustrations and information from this post, I know you will love my complete Plate Tectonics Unit. It’s got all the worksheets, diagrams, handouts, and other printable materials you need for a great unit (plus you’ll support my blog with your purchase!).
A volcano is an opening in the crust where lava, volcanic gases, and ash are expelled onto the Earth’s surface. They typically have cone-like shapes with depressions at their centers. There are three main types of volcanoes: shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes (also known as composite volcanoes), and cinder cones. Apart from these main types, other categories of volcanoes include calderas, lava domes, and fissures. Now, let’s learn a bit more about each of the different types of volcanoes:
For teachers: If you’re teaching the types of volcanoes, landforms, plate tectonics, or Earth science, hands-on learning resources and thoughtfully designed visuals are the key to sparking understanding. That’s why I create my complete units, full of science activities and original artwork and diagrams. The artwork and information in this post come from my Plate Tectonics Unit. You can also find information on volcanoes in theLandforms Unit and information on the rock cycle and magma in the Rocks & Minerals Unit. Plus, every purchase helps support this blog! ❤️
Shield volcanoes are made of layered lava rock from lava flows; wide, with gently sloping sides. They can be very large: up to ~ 10 km (6 mi) tall, when measured from the seafloor.
Stratovolcanoes are also called composite volcanoes. Their make-up includes layers of volcanic rockfragments and lava rock. You can find stratovolcanoes in areas near subduction zones, and they may have very explosive eruptions. This type of volcano is fairly steep-sided and medium-sized, about 1,000 – 4,000 m (3,000 – 13,000 ft) tall.
Examples: Mt. Fuji, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. St. Helens
Fragmented volcanic rocks (called “pyroclasts”) comprise cinder cones. They appear very steep-sided but relatively small – up to ~ 500 m (~ 1,600 ft) tall. They can occur on the sides of larger volcanoes.
Examples: Hverfjall, Hoodoo Butte, and Sunset Crater
Calderas
A caldera forms when a volcano’s magma chamber collapses. They appear bowl-shaped, and some fill with water to create lakes. Some calderas produce severe eruptions. Calderas are 1 km (0.6 mi) wide or greater. They can be huge, like the Yellowstone Caldera, a supervolcano.
Examples: Crater Lake, Krakatoa, and Eyjafjallajökull
Lava Domes
Lava domes are formed from lava rock; round or spire-shaped. Interestingly, they form when viscous (thick) lava reaches the surface and piles up because it cools faster than it can flow away. Lava domes are like corks in bottles and can erupt violently. Although powerful, lava domes are relatively small; they may be found on top of larger volcanoes.
A fissure is an elongated vent rather than a central vent; they are found on the ocean floor at divergent boundaries. Additionally, fissures can occur on land.
The length of fissures varies. The longest fissure eruption in recorded history was the Laki fissure in Iceland in the 18th century. It was ~ 25 km (~ 16 mi) long. In contrast, very small fissures are sometimes on the sides of larger volcanoes.
If you loved the illustrations and info in this post, I think you’ll love studying volcanoes in my complete Plate Tectonics Unit! It features my volcano artwork and includes posters, worksheets, activities, and more materials for studying volcanoes!
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You may have noticed the unique rings that appear on tree stumps – and you might even know that you can figure out a tree’s age by counting the rings! But did you know that scientists can use tree growth rings to learn about our past climate and even estimate the date of historic volcanic eruptions? In this post, we will explore the exciting fields of dendrochronology and dendroclimatology – that is, the study of tree-ring dating and the study of past climates using tree rings!
A note for teachers: if you’re planning to teach trees, you’ll find all the printable handouts, worksheets, and activity directions that you’ll need in my complete Trees Unit. Plus, you’ll support my blog with your purchase!
Growth rings form as trees grow within temperate zones: trees grow most rapidly during the warm season when their leaves are on their branches, performing photosynthesis. But in the colder season, leaves fall from branches, causing photosynthesis and growth to stall. This recurring fluctuation in growth rate each year creates the annual ring pattern.
Because of this, thicker tree rings form in years with the longest and warmest or wettest growing seasons. Cool or dry years lead to less favorable growing conditions and consequently, a thinner tree growth ring. Scientists can use tree rings in very old trees to learn about our past climate and even estimate the dates of significant geologic events like volcanic eruptions!
Beneath its rough bark, a tree holds more history than you might realize!
Tree Rings and Climate Change
Tree rings can also provide scientists with a valuable glimpse into our planet’s past climate. The patterns of thicker and thinner rings let scientists know when regions were experiencing events like droughts or cold spells: these less favorable conditions cause thinner growth rings during those years. For example, scientists in Scotland are using tree rings to learn about the variations and past behaviors of the jet stream – narrow, fast air currents in our Earth’s atmosphere, important to global weather patterns. Increased variations in tree rings in recent times lead scientists to suspect that human-caused climate change has started making the jet stream less predictable.
Additionally, historic forest fire regimes (the timing and frequency of forest fires) can be tracked through tree rings. If a tree survives a forest fire, its ring from that year will often be marked with distinct scarring from the flames. Scientists use the scars and rings to figure out the natural timing of the fire regime for a region before humans interfered.
The inside of a tree trunk contains many working parts – as well as a wealth of information about the historic climate and conditions!
You may wonder – why do we need trees to learn about past climates? Surely humans have written records of weather events. However, some trees can live to be several hundred to 1,000 years old, or more! Scientists have even found bristlecone pines, a tree species with remarkable longevity, that have been around for multiple millennia – well before humans were able to accurately measure temperature.
The tree rings can also be counted in petrified wood! When available, preserved and petrified wood give scientists an opportunity to see even further back into the past than the oldest trees in an area – just so long as they can figure out when the ancient tree fell or was chopped down.
Some petrified wood I spotted while out hiking in Colorado!
Tree Rings and Dating Volcanic Eruptions
Severe volcanic eruptions lead to less than favorable growing conditions due to volcanic debris in the atmosphere. Less sunlight reaching the Earth and poor air quality may cause thin or irregular tree rings following an eruption. Looking at the tree rings of very old trees can be a great way for scientists to narrow down the year of a historic volcanic eruption.
One recent example of using tree rings in this way involves a volcano on the Greek island of Santorini. Based on records, scientists knew a significant eruption occurred sometime around 1,600 or 1,500 B.C.E. When looking at an event this ancient, scientists are somewhat limited by the age of trees in the surrounding area – few trees alive today are known to have been alive in 1,600 B.C.E.
However, for this study, the ancient wood used to construct a tomb was used. So long as the life of the ancient tree partially overlaps with the life of a tree living today in that area, scientists can use overlaps in the ring patterns of the living and ancient tree to approximate the date it was cut down. Then, using tree rings from the ancient wood, scientists were able to narrow down the time frame and now estimate the eruption occurred close to the year 1,560 B.C.E. This was possible because scientists could detect a chemical anomaly (or sudden change from the normal chemical make-up) in the ancient tree’s growth rings around this time, caused by a sudden change in growing conditions following the eruption.
Scientists can also look at trees growing on top of volcanic debris deposits – the eruption that formed the deposits must be at least as old as the oldest tree growing on the deposit. Scientists must be careful using this method, however. Take, for example, one well-known volcano – Mount Rainier in Washington state, USA. For a while, scientists believed that Mount Rainier had erupted sometime between 1820 and 1854, based on a study involving counting the number of rings of trees growing upon moraines (mounds of debris deposits) that were assumed to have formed from an eruption (Crandell, 1969). However, more recently, scientists have discredited the tree ring study by showing that these moraines formed from older volcanic deposits being moved around by non-volcanic avalanches (Sisson & Vallance, 2009).
Volcanic eruptions have a huge impact on both the landscape and the plants and animals of an area! Pictured here is the crater of Haleakala, on the island of Maui in Hawaii.
How Scientists Observe Tree Rings
Scientists can learn a lot from looking at tree rings – but they do not necessarily need to chop down a tree to do this! The trees that give the scientists the opportunity to see the furthest back into history are the oldest trees – it certainly would not be worth chopping down these incredible, ancient living beings, just to get a look at their insides.
To look inside of a tree, scientists can use a thin, hand-operated drill to extract a thin “core” of wood. Imagine pushing a hollow straw through a layered Jello, to pull out a thin section – in that thin section you can see all the different stripes, representing each layer – or in the case of a tree, each ring! Then the stripes in the core can be counted to determine the number of rings, and the age of the tree. Trees can heal from these small puncture wounds – just like we heal after scraping a knee or getting a paper cut.
Drilling into a tree (left) then removing the core (right).
Classroom Activity: Observing Tree Rings and Tree Anatomy
As a plant anatomy learning activity, next time you see a cut log on the side of a trail, a stump, or some chopped firewood, try counting the number of rings to determine the tree’s age when it died. For additional learning fun, you can also try identifying the different parts of a tree cross-section: the bark, phloem, cambium, xylem (sapwood and heartwood), and pith:
Bark is the rough, protective outer coating. Bark helps protect the tree from insect and fungi invaders.
The phloem underlies the bark. The phloem’s function is to transport sugars. Sugars form in the leaves during photosynthesis, and the phloem moves the sugars to other parts of the plant where they are needed for growth.
The cambium is a thin layer of dividing cells between the xylem and phloem. This is where secondary (outward) growth occurs.
The sapwood underlies the cambium. The sapwood is the living part of the xylem, which actively moves water upwards through the tree. Water is drawn up through the ground via the tree’s roots. Water leaves the tree through tiny pores called stomata in the leaves, in a process called transpiration.
The heartwood is old, inactive xylem tissue. Heartwood no longer has living cells and does not move water. Heartwood provides structural support. Both living and dead xylem parts (sapwood and heartwood) contain tree rings that formed each year as the tree grew inwards from the cambium.
The pith is at the very center of the tree trunk and plays a role in the movement of nutrients. In older trees, the pith is often very tiny or diminished, relative to the size of the heartwood.
If you’re teaching this activity in an indoor classroom setting, it may help to have small wood slices to use as tree cross sections for each student to observe. (These are also really fun for kids to decorate and turn into necklaces!)
Free Worksheets: My email newsletter subscribers can download and print these free tree anatomy worksheets from my free resources page. To access the freebies, join the newsletter below:
If you enjoyed this post, I know you will love my complete Trees Unit! It has a ton of tree activities and everything you need to study trees in your classroom.
Driedger C. L. & Scott. W. E. U.S. Geological Survey. (August 28, 2008). Mount Rainier – Living safely with a volcano in your backyard. Retrieved from https://geology.com/usgs/rainier/
Pearson, C., Salzer, M., Wacker, L., Brewer, P., Sookdeo, A., & Kuniholm, P. (2020). Securing timelines in the ancient Mediterranean using multiproxy annual tree-ring data. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(15), 8410-8415.
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