Use a model to illustrate that energy from Earth’s interior drives convection that cycles Earth’s crust, leading to melting, crystallization, weathering, and deformation of large rock formations, including generation of ocean seafloor at ridges, submergence of ocean seafloor at trenches, mountain building, and active volcanic chains.
In this unit, students focus on the processes that cycle Earth materials, connecting the movement of water in the water cycle and wind with changes to Earth’s surface through weathering and erosion. In this lesson, students explore the science phenomena of how convection in Earth’s mantle causes the tectonic plates to move, creating many of Earth’s landforms. This page showcases key components of this lesson.
In this unit, students explore phenomena of natural processes that cause Earth’s surface to change over time, analyzing how energy causes Earth’s matter to transform and cycle from one form to another. In this lesson, students investigate how Earth materials are continually being reshaped and reformed by multiple processes that are powered by energy from Earth’s hot interior and the sun. This page is a high-level extract of this lesson.
In this unit, students use what they know about the relationship between energy and matter to investigate phenomena of how energy powers the cycling of Earth materials. They begin with this lesson on modeling the Earth processes that form different kinds of rock. This page provides an overview of this lesson.
