This article proposes an evidence-based and engaging approach to teaching the mechanisms driving the movement of tectonic plates that should lead high school students towards the prevalent theories used in peer-reviewed science journals and taught in universities. The methods presented replace the inaccurate and outdated focus on mantle convection…

The study and understanding of paleomagnetism has been pivotal in the development of the theory of plate tectonics. When it is taught in schools there are a number possible misconceptions that need to be addressed. This article attempts to provide an explanation of rock magnetism as well as strategies to avoid reinforcing some commonly identified…

Helping students understand that the scientific community's claims change through time, sometimes radically, allows them to develop a well-grounded sense of the "nature of science." Learning to reason about how scientific claims come to be accepted, and later refuted, is important for understanding the tentative nature of scientific…

Earth's easily seen surface features (mountains, volcanoes, and islands)--and the movement of the tectonic plates that lie below--offer hints about the processes that produced them. Inquiries in seismology, the study of earthquakes and other ground movements, can help students learn about Earth's geologic processes. This article describes an…

The "issue" of there being only limited time available to teachers for the development of teaching and learning resources has been with us a long time. This article outlines the rationale behind the development of online teaching resources that are freely available on the Earth Science Teachers' Association (ESTA) website and introduces readers to…

A survey of the Earth science content of science textbooks found a wide range of misconceptions. These are discussed in this article with reference to the published literature on Earth science misconceptions. Most misconceptions occurred in the "sedimentary rocks and processes" and "Earth's structure and plate tectonics"…

Google Earth is an exciting way to engage students in scientific inquiry--the foundation of science education standards and reforms. The National Science Education Standards identify inquiry as an active process that incorporates questioning, gathering and analyzing data, and thinking critically about the interplay of evidence and explanations.…

This is an interdisciplinary lesson designed for middle school students studying landforms and geological processes. Students create a two-dimensional topographic map from a three-dimensional landform that they create using clay. Students then use other groups' topographic maps to re-create landforms. Following this, students explore some basic…

Earthquakes "have" been in the news of late--from the disastrous 2010 Haitian temblor that killed more than 300,000 people to the March 2011 earthquake and devastating tsunami in Honshu, Japan, to the unexpected August 2011 earthquake in Mineral, Virginia, felt from Alabama to Maine and as far west as Illinois. As expected, these events…

Young-earth creationism has undergone a shift in emphasis toward building of historical models that incorporate Biblical and scientific evidence and the acceptance of scientific conclusions that were formerly rejected. The RATE Group admitted that massive amounts of radioactive decay occurred during earth history but proposed a period of…

"A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas" emphasizes that the practice of science is inherently a model-building activity focused on constructing explanations using evidence and reasoning (NRC 2012). Because building and refining is an iterative process, middle school students may view this practice…

The website "Earthlearningidea" was developed for the International Year of Planet Earth in 2007 and continues with one new activity per fortnight. Activities are devised to catch the attention of students and to enable them to enjoy the science of the Earth. Many activities require minimal equipment, for schools in developing countries, but there…

One of the most powerful pieces of knowledge that students can gain from the study of geology is an understanding of the immense scale of geologic time. In the author's introductory-level physical geology course at Northern Virginia Community College, they discuss geologic time about one-third of the way through the semester, after a thorough…

Current high school Earth Science curricula and textbooks organize scientific content into isolated "units" of knowledge. Within this structure, content is taught, but in the absence of the context of fundamental understandings or the process of how the science was actually done to reach the conclusions. These are two key facets of scientific…

Today's scientific theories are the result of a long collaborative process, sometimes over centuries, among many different scientists from various parts of the world. To communicate this concept to middle school students and introduce them to the theory of plate tectonics and continental drift, they are placed in the role of geologists attending a…