OpenSciEd Unit 6.5 · Lesson 02 · 2.B
Look for: On the first map, students gather evidence th…
From Teacher Edition
Facilitation guidance from the lesson plan — what to notice in student thinking and how to respond while teaching.
Building towards
2.B Use maps (digital tools) to analyze large data sets to identify cause-and-effect relationships between related geologic forces and resulting tsunamis.
What to look / listen for
- On the first map, students gather evidence that tsunamis occur in only certain parts of the world, in the oceans, and are mostly caused by earthquakes.
- On the second swipe map, students compare recent earthquake data to earthquakes historically related to tsunamis. Interpretations should include the idea that tsunamis occur in the same place as some earthquakes, but earthquakes also occur in places where tsunamis do not.
- These observed patterns motivate looking more closely at earthquake types to understand where tsunamis occur and why. On day 2, students will use a series of graphs about earthquake characteristics to determine which specific kinds of earthquakes are related to (and might cause) tsunamis.
What to do
If students struggle with the swipe map, point them to specific familiar locations (e.g., mid-Atlantic ridge, west coast of South America) and ask if earthquakes occur there or not, and also if tsunamis occur there or not. This will help them notice that not all earthquakes cause tsunamis. This key idea motivates the next investigation of the earthquakes that do cause tsunamis.
Revisit how we talk about apparent relationships between things or events.✱✱ Remind students of previous words they earned in the Everest Unit: correlation, or when two things seem to be related to each other, and causation, when one thing causes another thing to happen. Place these words on the Word Wall if they are not there.
At this point, students have figured out that earthquakes and tsunamis are related, but they must keep in mind that correlation does not always mean causation. Although not all earthquakes are associated with tsunamis, it seems that some are. The next step is to investigate the causal link between earthquakes and tsunamis. Similarly, tsunamis seem to occur on colliding plate boundaries, but we have not established a causal relationship, so this is also only a correlation.