6.A

6.A. Develop and use models showing what is happening at varying spatial and time scales to describe how plates interact at plate boundaries.

If students do not readily make the connections, cue them to tell you what is represented by the parts they are handling, and the movements they are making with them (or comment on those in the observations they recorded). Use the names of the real-world objects as you talk with them about their models (e.g. How are you moving the plate?, rather than, How are you moving the foam?)

Display slide J. Allow sufficient time to clean up the lab by rinsing and setting the foam pieces out to dry and disposing of the water in the aluminum pans. It can be very difficult to carry the shallow pans without spilling. You may want to circulate with a large tray or bucket to collect the water and then have students set the pans up to dry as well. Or if available, have students do this investigation near a sink.

Begin to plan their models. If time permits after groups have cleaned up the materials from the investigation, have students take a few minutes to start to identify which components and interactions they need to include and how they will represent them in each of their models in note form or with sketches on Record Your Observations or in their science notebooks. If you are assessing the observations they recorded, collect Record Your Observations.

HOME LEARNING OPPORTUNITY

If you run out of time to have students start to think with their groups about how they will represent what they observed in their models, let them know that during the next class period, they will be developing diagrammatic models of everything they observed. Ask them to make some notes and sketches in their science notebooks showing how they might represent what they observed. This will give them a bit of a head start on the activity in the next class period.