By watching a classroom demonstration, students will discover the five ways that Earth's crust shifts along a fault.
Note: You may want to use two different flavors of cake mix to represent layers in Earth 's strata. Carefully fill the cake pan halfway with one flavor and complete the cake with the other. The finished cake will have two integrated layers, thus, allowing a more effective demonstration.
You will need two foil cake pans for three of the four cakes. Cut one of the foil cake pans from side to side starting just beneath the reinforced rim. (The lateral movement is more effective if the pan is cut diagonally. This will result in a longer, more realistic fracture.) Leave the rim in tact to hold the cake in position during baking. Reinforce the cut pan by covering the outside with the sheet of foil. Place the foil-reinforced pan inside the second uncut cake pan. Lubricate the cut pan liberally with cooking spray.
Mix and bake the cake according to directions. Before conducting the experiment, remove from the outer pan the cut and reinforced inner pan that contains the cake. Cut the rim at the top of the inner cake pan, pulling it apart. Be careful not to fracture the cake when completing this step.
Additional Resources:
Video: Earthquakes:Our Restless Planet (Rainbow Educational Media) Free Preview
(1-800-331-4047)
Copycat Pages, Ranger Rick 's Naturescope: Geology --The Active Earth, Vol.3, #2.
Earthquakes are energy waves passing through Earth caused by sudden shifts of crust along faults. You know you are in an earthquake if the ground starts to shake. Tremendous forces under Earth 's surface build up pressure that is released in a fault, which is a crack in the rock that allows the crust to slip. The magnitude of the quake varies according to the amount of energy released by plate interaction (Science and Children, September 1991 by Garry R. Hardy and Marvin N. Tolman).
There are five ways that Earth 's crust shifts along a fault.
1-Use science process and thinking skills.
2-Manifest scientific attitudes and interests.
3-Understand science concepts and principles.
4-Communicate effectively using science language and reasoning.
Invitation to Learn:
Move outside and have the students form two lines facing each other.
Tell them that they represent the two sides of the San Andreas Fault in California.
Have each child join hands with the person opposite him/her and explain that
they represent a fence that stretches across the fault. On your signal, have
the two lines take ten steps sideways in opposite directions. The "fence
" should stretch and finally break during the shift. Explain that this
kind of shift occurred in the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.When the shift
was calculated, it measured a record twenty feet (6 meters). Fences, bridges,
roads, and buildings that reached across the fault were broken apart.
Instructional Procedures:
The activity can be made simpler by a teacher demonstration of one of the types of cakes and discussions of the others. Videos and CDs can be used to help understand these concepts. Fieldtrips can be taken to areas of interest. Virtual fieldtrips are becoming available on UEN and other Internet sites.
Have each student make a personal picture book and draw examples of each of the five plate interactions. Using their journal notes from the demonstrations, students should add a minimum of three sentence descriptions to each of the five plate interactions picture pages.
This lesson is part of the Fifth Grade Science Teacher Resource Book (TRB3) http://www.usoe.org/curr/science/core/5th/TRB5/. The TRB3 is designed to be your textbook in teaching science curriculum to your students. This book covers all the objectives of each standard and benchmark. If taught efficiently, a student should do well on the End-of-Level (CRT) tests. The TRB3 is designed for teachers who know very little about science, as well as for teachers who have a broad understanding of science.