Hands-on learning boosts understanding

Julie Watt shares about using Geology activities with 8th graders at Madison Middle School in Madison, Ohio:

This summer I attended the OOGEEP geology workshop—a positive experience that left a wonderful impression on me. Being immersed in the geology content and being able to implement the lessons during the workshop encouraged me to try the lessons in my classroom. It was interesting to collaborate with so many people who came from very diverse backgrounds and levels of expertise, ranging from professionals in fieldwork to multi-grade level teachers. I felt confident in my knowledge of geology, but the field trip to Kimble Corporation inspired me to show my students the many careers included in the natural gas and crude oil industry. I want my students to realize that science is embedded in many everyday activities where there are multiple career options.

Students enjoyed coloring and putting together Pangaea from the Puzzling Evidence activity. Many students had “a-ha” moments while matching the fossils together. Creating the “puzzle” helped many students recall more than one piece of evidence to support it. Many students remembered the Glossoptens fern, Mesosaurus, and that mountain ranges aligned. This lesson was easy to implement, met the 8th grade Ohio standards directly, and did not need any tweaking. Providing the country, Africa, in the middle of the page helped students solve the mystery correctly.

Predicting Plate Motion was an easy-to-implement activity that led to many more questions about Earth. Students struggled to know which direction Antartctica was moving. Some students struggled to find the Atlantic Ocean but had an “a-ha” moment when they realized that South America was moving away from Africa. This led to discussions about the growing Atlantic Ocean, shrinking Pacific Ocean, and the reasons that the ocean salt waters never mix! It also led to students predicting that eventually land would come back together. I tweaked this lesson by having students look at “Pangaea” in order to make their predictions and showing them “Amasia” after their discussions about the plate boundary movements.

Edible Tectonics was a great activity to reinforce the plate boundaries concept. I used this lab activity as a review before my students took their mid-term. Students were able to easily follow the lab sheet and complete it. Students enjoyed eating the chocolate! I provided a wordbank, diagrams, famous landforms, and relative motion arrows that students had to match in a google slides presentation. For many students, the "a-ha" moment was at the convergent boundary activity. I gave every student their own “fun size” candy. Many students were able to identify the difference between a mountain, trench, and a subduction zone simply because peers ended up with different results with the same “compressional” action.