This activity is a teacher-led demonstration of continental drift and includes a math worksheet for students involving the calculation of continental drift over time. Students will understand what continental drift is, why it occurs, and how earthquakes occur because of it.

CK-12 Earth Science For High School covers the study of Earth - its minerals and energy resources, processes inside and on its surface, its past, water, weather and climate, the environment and human actions, and astronomy.

CK-12 Earth Science For Middle School covers the study of Earth - its minerals and energy resources, processes inside and on its surface, its past, water, weather and climate, the environment and human actions, and astronomy.

This article provides science content knowledge about forces that shape the Earth's surface: erosion by wind, water, and ice, volcanoes, earthquakes, and plate tectonics and how these forces affect Earth's polar regions.

In this investigation, students discover the spatial relationship between recent earthquakes, volcanoes, and the Earth's plates through visual inspection of tectonic activity plots on world maps, and by comparing the position of recent tectonic events with the position of the Earth's plates. Summary background information, data and images supporting the activity are available on the Earth Update data site. To complete the activity, students will need to access the Space Update multimedia collection, which is available for download and purchase for use in the classroom.

This is a website that serves as an online textbook to tell the story of William Gilbert, English physicist during the time of Queen Elizabeth I, and the history of the discovery of Earth's magnetism. Learners can read about historical studies of magnetism, connections between sunspot activity and the Earth's magnetic field, the internal dynamo responsible for generating the Earth's magnetic field, magnetic polarity and reversals, and geomagnetic storms.

Students learn about the structure of the earth, the movements of its tectonic plates, as well as the forces that create mountains, valleys, volcanoes, and earthquakes.

This article profiles Dr. Anne Grunow, curator of the United States Polar Rock Repository, and discusses her work as a polar geologist.

This article features children's literature about erosion, glaciers, earthquakes, and volcanoes for use in the elementary classroom.

This video shows the tectonic activity underneath Yellostone National Park, and how if it erupts, it could be bigger than Mt.Saint Helens.

After researching and learning about the possible devastation that would ensue if the Supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park were to erupt, students will work together in this problem-based learning module to use the information to create a news report to inform American citizens of the effects that would ensure in the event of an eruption. When creating the news report, students will be asked to think of a way to capture their audience attention about the topic while still explaining the science behind what is happening at this site. Students will also take the role of a number of different characters (i.e. experts in the field, scientists, concerned citizens, news caster etc.), and show at least one powerful image to aid in telling the story. After the Launch of the activity, students will take time to explore a variety of resources about this topic that will aid them in answering the "need to know " questions needed to create their News. These items should be shared with the students electronically in a collective folder, and students will be asked to gather the information at their own pace. Once students have completed their news story, students will present their final products to an authentic audience consisting of district Administration, and building staff members.

This is an encyclopedia entry for the term "mantle." The mantle is one of the three main layers of the Earth. Text for this entry is appropriate for the middle and high school grade levels. An accompanying image set provides graphics to add to a lecture on the layers of the Earth.