Candy Plate Boundaries and Fault Foldable

This lesson was modified from a lesson on Science Spot (Candy Plate Tectonics).  I chose to use this idea to teach plate boundaries.  We used Twix bars to demonstrate divergent boundaries, AirHeads to teach convergent boundaries, and Starbursts to teach transform boundaries.  Once again, students were excited about this lesson because they were able to eat!

Here is the guided lesson:  Candy Activity

After this lesson, we soon moved on to learning about different types of stresses and faults.  It was great because students had a strong understanding of types of boundaries so they were able to make connections back to the activity as they learned about stresses and faults.  To emphasize these connections, students created the following foldable.

Fault Foldable

Illinois State Standards:

12.E.3a. Analyze and explain large-scale dynamic forces, events and processes that affect the Earth's land, water and atmospheric systems (e.g., jetstream, hurricanes, plate tectonics). 

Objectives:

Students will:

-create models of plate boundaries using candy

-explain movements of different plate boundaries

-compare plate boundaries with stresses such as tension, compression, and shearing

-explain how stress in the Earth's surface results in faults

-identify the hanging wall and footwall

-explain how the plates move in different types of faults

Assessment:

Students were assessed based on their participation in the activity.  During the activity, students answered questions demonstrating their understanding of plate boundaries.  As they completed each part of the activity, they checked in with me to verbally explain how the activity connected to plate boundaries.  Their completion of the foldable demonstrated student's ability to make connections to their prior knowledge and identify types of faults.