Earth’s structure

Introduction

This topic explores the key concepts of the Earth’s structure as they relate to:

The activities in this topic are designed to explore the following key concepts:

Earth is made up of layers: the core, mantle and crust.
Earth’s crust is divided into plates that move like bricks over freshly laid mortar.
Earth’s plate movements are responsible for earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes.
Earth’s plate movements are responsible for the creation of mountain ranges.
Soils on Earth are the result of weathering of rocks.
There are three main categories of rock: igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary.
Igneous rocks are formed through the cooling of magma.
Sedimentary rocks are formed through compaction of sediment over an extended period of time.
Metamorphic rocks result through the transformation of other rocks by heat and pressure processes that occur below Earth’s surface.
Minerals are the building blocks of rocks.

Research into students’ ideas about this topic has identified the following non-scientific conceptions:

The location of earthquakes is random.
Continents don’t move.
Earth is molten, except for its crust.
Most of the world’s most spectacular scenery was created by cataclysmic events.
An earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale is one time more powerful than an earthquake measuring 5.5.
Rocks stay the same forever.
Earthquakes cannot happen where I live.
The biggest danger of a volcano such as Mount St Helens is the hot lava.
Any crystal that scratches glass is a diamond.
Rocks must be heavy.
Soil must have always been in its present form.
Mountains are created rapidly.
Earth’s gravitational attraction is drastically reduced on mountaintops.
Boiling or burning radioactive material can reduce the radiation emanating from the material.
All radioactivity is man-made.