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Type
science_lab
Pre Lab
Background: Deep beneath your feet, Earth is constantly moving — but not in ways you can easily feel from day to day. Earth is made of several layers. The outermost solid layer is called the **crust**, which is broken into massive sections called **tectonic plates**. Below the crust lies the **mantle**, a thick layer of rock that, over millions of years, behaves almost like an extremely slow-moving fluid. Scientists have discovered that the movement of Earth's plates — a process known as **plate tectonics** — is driven by heat from deep inside the planet.
Heat from Earth's interior causes rock in the mantle to behave in a surprising way. When mantle rock is heated from below, it becomes less **dense** — meaning the same volume of it weighs less — and it slowly rises toward the crust. As it rises, it cools, becomes more dense, and sinks back down. This circular movement of material driven by differences in density is called a **convection current**. Convection currents in the mantle work like a giant conveyor belt beneath Earth's plates, pushing and pulling them across the surface.
Where two plates are pushed away from each other by rising convection currents, we call this a **divergent boundary**. At divergent boundaries, new crust is often formed as molten rock fills the gap between separating plates. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge on the ocean floor is one famous example of a divergent boundary. In today's lab, you will build a model using hot water, cold water, and small paper pieces to observe how convection currents form and how they can cause floating objects — representing crustal plates — to move apart.
Vocabulary
Term: convection
Definition: The transfer of heat through a fluid (liquid or gas) caused by the movement of the fluid itself due to differences in density.
Term: convection currents
Lab Type
Post Lab
Standards
Safety Level
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