Actvity Summary: Students will be able to analyze ocean sediment cores to describe the sediment and rock types found on the floor of the South China Sea to analyze how tectonic conditions have changed the area over time.
This lesson has students analyze ocean sediment cores to understand how scientists use this evidence to reconstruct the geologic history of the ocean floor in an area with a lot of tectonic plate activity. Before conducting this lesson, students need to understand the movement of plate tectonics, different types of plate boundaries, and the flow of sediments from land to the ocean.
This lesson has been revised and updated based on Plate Tectonics and Contributions from Scientific Ocean Drilling.
author: Lindsay Mossa
- Standard B: Science as inquiry
- Standard E: Earth and space science
- Patterns
- Energy and matter
- Developing and using models
- Analyzing and interpreting data
- Engaging in argument from evidence
- ESS1. C The history of the planet Earth
- ESS2.A Earth materials and systems
- ESS2.B Plate tectonics and large-scale system interactions