Have you tried our latest activity 'From clay balls to the structure of the Earth'? We have now published Extension details (19MB) about this Earthlearningidea. Class discussion is likely to conclude that, firstly, the main evidence for the structure of the Earth, including the depths of the boundaries and the state and composition of the materials involved, comes from seismic waves. Secondly, extra evidence comes from the Earth's magnetic field, its mass (and density) and its rotational inertia.Do try this activity with your students and send us their findings.
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1 comment:
This was a timely lesson for me. I was discussing the origin of the Earth and differentiation in my Historical Geology class and this activity provided an opportunity to discuss how 'science' works as related to a current topic in class.
As a follow-up or extension of the activity. I gave the students a graph of seismic velocity and density plotted against depth within the Earth. Using this example of the data used to interpret the structure of the Earth students were asked to 'identify' the layers (mantle, inner core and outer core) based on the changes in density and seismic velocity.
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