Over the last few weeks in science, we have been studying what is on and under the surface of the ocean floor. We learned about continental drift and lines of evidence for Keystone 1, then we had to make a GIF about continental drift for Keystone 2. The for Keystone 3 we had to film a video of us ‘cooking up’ a natural disaster caused by sea floor spreading.

Keystone 1

The first thing that we had to do for this project was learn about continental drift. Continental drift was Alfred Wegener’s theory that all the continents used to be one big continent called Pangaea. This theory was ridiculed at the time since he could not explain how the continents moved and so no one even thought about his theory until after he was dead. Alfred Wegener first thought of this theory when he saw that some lines of mountains and same types of fossils were on different continents, but looked like they could connect to each other.those were the lines of evidence. To learn about that, we had to make fossils. We pressed dinosaur skeleton figures into flat slabs of play dough, then took the figures out and filled the play dough mold with plaster. That became our fossils, and our lines of evidence for Keystone 1. Here is my fossil, and a few facts I learned.

Keystone 2

Now, for Keystone 2 we learned about sea floor spreading and went deeper into how continental drift was real. We learned that the cracks in the ocean floor spew out lava, and the lava spreads across the ocean floor while cooling down and turning into rock. When the ocean spreads and hardens, that pushes two continents either away, or towards each other, causing continental drift. To show this, we had to make a GIF of the process of sea floor spreading or continental drift. I chose continental drift, and this is my GIF below.

Keystone 3

Last but not least, for Keystone 3 we learned about how sea floor spreading and continental drift causes natural disasters. We learned about the three different types of ways tectonic plates (pieces of land that the continents are on) move. There is divergent, which is when sea floor spreading happens in between two continents, pushing them away from each other. This can cause trenches to appear in the ocean, or cause one continent to split apart. The second one is convergent, which is when sea floor spreading pushes two continents together. This is how mountains are made. When the two continents get pressed up against each other, if their density is the same amount, they will rise up to form a mountain. But if one tectonic plate’s density is less than another, then the one with less density will get pushed under the other. The third way tectonic plates move is called transform. This is when two continents rub against each other and one is moving forward while the other is moving backwards. Since the edges are jagged, when they are pressed up against each other, pressure builds up. When that pressure is released it causes huge earth quakes to happen. To show our understanding we had to film a video explaining the tectonic plates with food with a partner. My video is linked below.

Conclusion

I learned a lot through this project, like how the continents move 1-12cm a year, or how sea floor spreading is what causes natural disasters. I hope that you enjoyed looking over all of my projects for this unit. Thank you for reading this blog post, and I will see you at my next one!