Lesson Outline

Lesson: Causes of Plate Motion

Objective
Content: Students will describe the main causes of plate motion:
REQUIRED LAB TOPIC/suggested labs= what Drives the Plates? AND Snack
Tectonics.
a.
Describe how convection currents in the mantle are currently the
most accepted explanation for plate movement.
b.
Ridge push
c.
Slab pull
Also address SC.912.P.10.4: Describe heat as the energy transferred by
convection, conduction and radiation and explain the connection of heat to change
in temperature or states of matter.

Describe how plates interact with each other and what the interactions
cause.
a.
Boundaries (divergent, convergent, transform)
*divergent= mid-ocean ridges and rift valleys. Example= East African Rift
zone
*convergent=trenches, LAND volcanoes, mountain ranges. Examples=
Himalayas and Appalachians
*transform=deformation of crust (see changes in rail-road tracks etc).
Example is the formation of the San Andreas Fault due to a transform
boundary.
b.
Faults (breaks). Discuss how faults result from types of stress which in
turn causes strain that could then produce earthquake.
*Normal faults are often associated with divergent (tensional) boundaries.
*Thrust faults are often associated with convergent (compression)
boundaries.
*Strike-slip faults are often associated with transform (sliding) boundaries.
Also address SC.912.N.1.6: Describe how scientific inferences are drawn from
scientific observations and provide examples from the content being studied.

Lesson Time Frame: 6 days

Materials needed: Binders, Cornell notes. PowerPoint slides on the different Plate Boundaries
would be given out. Materials for activity would be paper plates, frosting, graham crackers,
knives and water (all provided).

Description of the tasks: Students would be required to take notes in class. There would be
activities which would be in the form of peer work, where there would be labelling and writing
descriptions of the diagrams given. These diagrams will consist of the three types of boundaries
(Divergent, Convergent and Transform). The lab activity using the graham crackers (representing
the lithosphere) and frosting (representing the asthenosphere) would be used to demonstrate how
plates move on the Earths upper mantle. A guide to this lab activity explaining the procedures
would also be given. Students would be required to pre and post read their work. Feedback in the
form of summaries are important in order to gage understanding.

The lesson plan developed gives instruction to the objectives and goals that the
students need to accomplish. The description of the tasks act as guided instructions
to what needs to be done in order to complete the activity for the lab portion. In
terms of developing language skills for the ELLs, the vocabulary in this lesson would
be taught through the use of oral and visual aid so that would get familiarized with
the words. Worksheets in which they would have to use these words in sentence
structure would also be designed to help in making connections in the academic
context point of view. Students would also be given the opportunity to work
collaboratively which would aid in ELLs participating and contributing to the lesson,
thus enhancing their language skills. A lot of visuals in terms of descriptive pictures
and videos would also be used to develop cognitive language skills, in which they
would have to make connections to vocabulary and be able to formulate their
understanding of the topic into their own words. They would be given the
opportunity to also relate the text to real life so that they can further establish their
language skills within the classroom community. Topics will also have essential
questions and summary answers so that students are required to analyze the
questions that are given to them. In all, having guided questions, promoting
collaborative work and using different strategies to teach certain topics will aid the
advancement of their language skills.