<aside> 🎮 Hi Ecowarriors, it's game day! Have you ever wondered how and why earthquakes happen? Well, you get to find out in today’s lesson about geological systems!
</aside>
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/78ca5310-e782-4373-b95b-880695ed80c9/Overview.m4a
Today you will play the Earth Structure game linked here and the Tectonic Plate game linked here While you are playing these games, follow along with the writeup below! Today’s lesson is a bit longer, but it’s also lots of fun!
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/9c4c3776-cc7b-425d-9d3a-371e2c380ed6/Introduction_and_Background.m4a
Today, we will explore the Earth’s structure with a drag and drop game! As humans, we spend most of our time on the surface of the Earth. It might seem as though our planet is a single solid rock, but Earth is actually made up of multiple layers. It’s like a giant onion!
There are four main layers: the crust, the mantle, the outer core, and the inner core. Before we jump into the game, let’s learn a bit more about each layer!
The crust, where we live, is the thinnest layer of the Earth. The land we walk on, also called the continental crust, is about 8 km to 70 km (or 5 miles to 43 miles) thick. The layer below the ocean is called the oceanic crust and is only about 8 km (or 5 miles) thick.
Both the continental and oceanic crusts are solid and made up of many different types of rocks. The crust is the only layer of the Earth where life exists!
Interestingly, the crust is broken up into many huge pieces of rock called tectonic plates. These plates shift very slowly, and when they bump into each other, they cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions! We’ll learn more about tectonic plates later.
The next layer of the Earth, the mantle, is also mostly solid, but it is much thicker than the crust. The mantle is about 2,900 km (or about 1,800 miles) thick. In fact, it’s so big that it takes up two-thirds of the Earth’s weight!
The upper mantle, the part that is closer to the surface, is made up of solid rock. The lower mantle, the part that is further from the surface, is made up of a mixture of solid and melting rock (liquid).
In the mantle, temperatures range from about 1,000°C – 3,500°C (or 1,800°F - 6,000°F). That’s hot!
Next, we have the outer core of the Earth. The outer core is liquid and is made up of iron and nickel.
This layer of Earth is very hot, with temperatures reaching 4,000°C to 6,000°C (that’s about 7,000°F - 10,000°F)!
This layer is about 2,400 km (or 1,500 miles) thick, and it swirls around the Earth’s center. The movement of the hot metal within the outer core creates the Earth’s magnetic field. This magnetic field is very important, as it shields us from the sun’s harsh rays.