Moving Continents

Teaching middle school students about plate tectonics is challenging because of the abstract nature of the large spatial scale of the continental and oceanic plates as well as the slow temporal movements of these plates. [...]selecting a unit-level anchoring phenomenon that students could observe to form testable explanations and predictions about plate tectonics was crucial. [...]many Connecticut children have visited this park either with their parents or during school field trips. A Gotta-HaveIt Checklist (see For the Teacher: Literacy Strategies in Online Supplemental Materials) provided students with a list of criteria that included (1) the location of Dinosaur State Park, (2) observable and unobservable parts of the phenomenon, (3) time passing (i.e., the time when the dinosaurs left the prints and today), and (4) the possible mechanisms that lead to the change. The naive and incomplete mechanism students included to explain the warm climate was the dinosaurs exhaling carbon dioxide. Because this was their initial model, suggestions were not yet provided to improve on the model, as students would make modifications as they progressed throughout the unit, adding to their conceptual understanding and resolving initial misconceptions.