Thursday’s Lesson

We have looked at some patterns in Earth’s features and how the Earth has changed. Today, we will continue to think about these patterns and what information they provide about the formation of these features. What do you think St. Louis looked like 250 million years ago? What about the Earth?
1. Sketch a picture of St. Louis from 250 million years ago (in your science notebook) based on what you think the area looked like. When complete, we will share with our table groups.
2. We will read pages 1-5 in “Planet Earth, Inside Out”. How did the Earth used to look?
3. We will now look at maps on the first 4 slides found at: Slides. What do you notice in each picture?
4. Watch this video about Plate Tectonics.
5. Now we will look at slide 5. What do you notice about the location of earthquakes, volcanoes, and plate boundaries?
6. We will continue reading some of “Planet Earth, Inside Out”. Think about this question: Why are plate boundaries located in similar places to volcanoes and earthquakes?
7. Watch the video: Change of Scenery
8. Now, take a look at slides 9 and 10. How do scientists know this is how the earth used to look? Any ideas?
9. We will now try to create the super-continent “Pangea”. Cut out the puzzle pieces and place them together to make one large continent. Can you use the pictures of fossils on the puzzle pieces to put the continent together correctly?
10. Finally, watch the video Greatest Discoveries to see how scientists used fossils to find out what Pangea looked like.

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