Monday 29 April 2013

Magnetic stripes

Have you tried the ELI 'Magnetic stripes'? This activity models the symmetrical magnetic pattern of the rocks of the sea floor. The magnetic properties of the rocks below the sea bed have been used to show that the ocean floors are spreading outwards.
This is one of many ELI activities used to teach the theory of plate tectonics; a list is provided in the 'Teaching strategies', link from the ELI home page.

1 comment:

Mary from NM said...

I recently talked about hot spots in class and using them to track plate velocity and it occurred to me that a simple extension to magnetic stripes would also demonstrate how a plate moves over a hot spot. Perhaps have students mark a hot spot on the underlying layer in the model and then every so often draw a volcano on the trace from the ridge.