Journey to the Center of Earth: Project Based Learning Part 2

Objective: Students will introduce a traveler on a virtual “Journey to the Center of Earth” to the structure, size, properties and conditions within Earth’s interior.

 

Background: In the 1800’s there was considerable scientific and popular interest in what the interior of Earth was like. The details of the internal structure had not yet been discovered.  Volcanic eruptions demonstrated that at least part of the interior of the Earth was hot enough to melt rocks.  Jules Verne’s book, A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) took advantage of the public’s interest.  In Verne’s book, the reader is introduced to a professor and his nephew who travel into Earth’s deep interior by entering into an opening in the crater of a volcano in Iceland.

We know today that a journey like the one described in Verne’s book is impossible.  The temperature and pressure conditions within the Earth are so extreme that humans couldn’t survive more than a few kilometers below the surface.  And still today, we don’t know of any significant openings that would provide access to the deep interior of the planet. 

By the late 1800’s, observations of temperature in mines and drill holes had demonstrated that temperature within the Earth increased with depth, and thus it is possible that the Earth’s interior is very hot.  Seismographic recordings in the early 1900’s were used to identify the Earth’s thin crust and the existence of the core (1906), later evidence for a solid inner core was discovered.  Since then, seismology and other geological studies have provided considerably more detailed information about the structure, composition, and conditions of the interior of the Earth.  These features will be highlighted during our virtual “Journey to the Center of the Earth”.

Project Rubric

	Journey Activities			100 POINTS POSSIBLE
Apply   #4	·         Class Presentation   Common Craft Video about your Journey to the Center of Earth   Resources: iPad	Graphic Organizer Started        3 POINTS	Graphic Organizer Complete         5 POINTS	One of #4 Activity Items Completed   Video Uploaded to YouTube and Presented to Class   11 POINTS
Explain   #3	·         Mark assigned “stops” on map ·         Describe assigned “stops”  Resources: iPad	Some “stops” marked on map   3 POINTS	“Stops” marked on map   5 POINTS	#3 Activity Item Completed     10 POINTS
Understand   #2	·         Create scale map of Earth’s interior       Resources: Inside Earth text	Map neatly drawn with color      3 POINTS	Map neatly drawn with color and basic features labeled   5 POINTS	#2 Activity Item Completed        10 POINTS
Know   #1	·         Guided CORNELL Notes        +revise notes        +write Costa’s questions        +OUTPUT ·         HW: The Structure of Earth   Resources: iPad	Partial completion of CORNELL notes         50 POINTS	CORNELL Notes Completed     +revise     +questions     +OUTPUT   60 POINTS	All  #1 Activity Items Competed           69 POINTS
Introduction	Down to the Earth’s Core Resources: National Geographic

 

Student Samples