Hi, its Julien again.

During the past few weeks in our Sciematics class we have been learning about plate tectonics (PT). At first I thought plate tectonics were just going to be learning about earthquakes and it was going to be a boring unit. Once we actually got into the unit though it turned out to be really interesting and fun. In this blog post I will be talking about our projects, the steps I took to complete it and the final product.

Our project was to create a short book that explained what plate tectonics are and how they affect our world. First we took some khan academy quizzes about PT. By taking the quizzes my understanding improved on how diverse the subject of PT really was. After that, we had to brainstorm. We created a mind map or a spider web on what we already knew about plate tectonics and some questions we had about it. When creating that it helped better understand the concept because it helped me realize what I knew about PT by putting it all down in a map. Next, we started the book. My book was about a man named nick who wanted to study the field of geology. He took a trip to Japan and that’s where the story starts. When I was making the book I definitely improved my understanding of PT. I started to grasp the big idea and how PT affected our earth and how it was shifting not just the world we see but also underground and in the ocean. I learned that almost all geological structures are created by shifting plates.

In the book, I definitely demonstrated my understanding of Plate Tectonics by writing about 10 key concepts about PT and explaining thoroughly what they were and how they affected us. I appreciated the evidence by mentioning how the scientists measure and predict earthquakes and how they have advanced us in the field of plate tectonics. I demonstrated a sustained curiosity by having my main focus on making my information as interesting as possible and mainly focusing on learning about PT and finishing my book. I explained the big idea of plate tectonics by crafting a well thought out book and explaining PT as well as I could while still keeping the readers attention. I tried to make the book as interesting as possible while still writing about PT. I was contributing to care for myself and others by reading my book aloud to my elementary school partner while asking them if they understand. If they didn’t I would explain as well as I could and ask again. I would respectfully let them follow along reading and helping them pronounce the big words.

My Mind Map

A couple pages from my book

Overall I am very happy with the end product that I created for this project. I know this project has helped me better my understanding of plate tectonics, what they do  and how they affect our earth. As a student know our teacher will have more projects like this in-store for us and I’m happy that he will. I know that the kid who read my book will now know at least a little bit more about plate tectonics and I feel good that I helped his leaning.