Fifth Grade

Classroom Activities

1. Pangaea Revisited

Focus Question: How do we know of Pangaea's existence?

2. Introduction to the Sea Floor

Focus Question: What are the major components of the seafloor?

3. Quakes and Plates

Focus Question: What types of seafloor features are associated with a lot of shallow earthquake activity? What types of continental features are associated with earthquakes?

4. The Puzzling Plates

Focus Question: What are the different plates that make up the earth's crust?
How do ridges, oceans, and trenches form?

5. M&M Earth

Focus Question: What are the different layers seen in a cross section of the earth?
What happens to these layers when they are stressed and fracture?

6. Hot Spots!

Focus Question: What are hot spots and how are they formed? How can we use the ages of rocks to see the motion of the lithospheric plates?

7. Investigating the Causes of Tides

Focus Question: Why do we have high tides and low tides? Why is high tide later each day?
Why do tidal ranges change?

8. Shark-Eating Mans

Focus Question: Is it possible to overfish sharks?

9. Vegetarian Sharks?

Focus Question: Do sharks need plants? How is energy transferred through a
typical marine food web?

10. Sculpting South Carolina (from the S.C. Aquarium Online Curriculum)

http://www.scaquarium.org/curriculum/iexplore/three_five/units/regions/regions_main.htm

Focus Question: How do you think precipitation, elevation and the geology of an area affect what
types of wildlife communities you might find there?

South Carolina Aquarium Activities

1. Oh What a Tangled Web

Focus Question: What do food webs in different environments of South Carolina look like?

2. Built For Speed

Focus Question: Why is a shark faster than a puffer fish?

3. The Biotic Woman

Focus Question: What are the biotic and abiotic factors of the different regions of South Carolina?

Field Trip Activities

1. The Coast in Motion

Glossary