Here you will find resources to help educators and their students use several present-day distributions of minerals, rock formations and fossils to help figure out the distribution of continents; construct a map showing the position of continents 250 million years ago by reversing the present direction of plate motion; recognize a convergence of presently widely scattered minerals, rock formation and fossils when all the continents where part of Pangea; compare present average community motions with that of the past 250 million years by calculating the average yearly rate of motion over the last 250 million years; describe the context in which the hypothesis of continental drift was proposed and why it was subjected to criticism; show that your community has moved through different ecological regions over time.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students use maps to examine the distribution of earthquakes and volcanoes to the location of plate boundaries; explain the location, nature and cause of volcanic arcs in terms of plate tectonics; explain the location, nature and cause of hot spots; explain how plate-tectonic processes have caused continents to grow through geologic time; explain how plate-tectonic processes produce landforms; explain how plate tectonics can affect the interior of a continent.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students to assign earthquake intensity based on observed effects; describe the effects of passing earthquake waves; recognize the secondary effects of earthquakes; relate variations in intensity to the nature of the underlying geologic material; identify places in your community with high and low risk from earthquakes; outline steps to increase personal safety during an earthquake.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students assign earthquake intensity based on observed effects; describe the effects of passing earthquake waves; recognize the secondary effects of earthquakes; relate variations in intensity to the nature of the underlying geologic material; identify places in your community with high and low risk from earthquakes; outline steps to increase personal safety during an earthquake.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students recognize patterns in the global distribution of earthquakes; interpret maps and research written information to determine the earthquake history of the community and region; examine correlations between faults and earthquakes on a regional and community scale; assess the likelihood of future earthquakes in the community; interpret graphical data to examine long-term trends in the number of earthquakes in the U.S.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students rank the effects of earthquakes; map the intensity of earthquakes; interpret a map of earthquake intensity to infer the general location of the epicenter; identify geologic materials that pose special problems during earthquakes; explain how the magnitude of an earthquake is determined.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students construct a simple seismometer; record motion in two dimensions and also within a fixed time frame; understand how seismometers record earthquake waves; recognize P waves, S waves, and surface waves on seismograms; read a graph to determine the distance to the earthquake focus; locate the epicenter from time-distance graphs.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students to generate and describe two types of waves; determine the relative speeds of compressional and shear waves; simulate some of the motions associated with earthquakes; infer the origin of earthquakes and the mechanism of transfer of seismic wave energy.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students to calculate the density of liquids and compare their densities with their position in a column of liquid; observe the effects of temperature on the density of a material; examine the natural heat flow from within the Earth; understand the results of uneven heating within the Earth; and understand the causes of the movement of lithospheric plates.

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students classify and label the types of movement at plate boundaries, using a world map that shows relative plate motion; identify the distribution of plates by means of the world map of relative plate motions; describe the present plate-tectonic setting of your community and infer possible past plate-tectonic activity based on your knowledge.