Subtopic: Plate Tectonics

1964 Alaska Earthquake
This video adapted from the Valdez Museum & Historical Archive, explores what happened during the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 through original footage, first-person accounts, and animations illustrating plate tectonics.

Anatomy of a Tsunami
Using visual models and other graphics, this interactive activity from NOVA Online reveals details of the December 26, 2004 tsunami that collided with coasts around the Indian Ocean.

Collecting Data Below the Earth's Surface
This video segment adapted from Discovering Women demonstrates how scientists use sound waves to collect data about the structure of Earth's crust.

Continental Drift: From Idea to Theory
In this media-rich activity designed to enhance literacy skills, students learn how the theory that explains the position of Earth's continents was established and later modified, and gain important insights into how science and the scientific community operate.

Dating Lava Flows on Mauna Loa Volcano, Hawaiʻi
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists search for carbonized remains of plants preserved in lava flows to find out how long it has taken rain forests on Hawaiʻi to regenerate after a volcanic eruption.

Earthquake Prediction
This video segment adapted from NOVA tells the tragic story of two Japanese seismologists who disagreed about the threat of earthquakes in the early twentieth century. Today, seismologists in California offer residents a probability of risk that an earthquake might occur.

Earthquakes: San Francisco
The history of earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay area is plotted on a digital map and analyzed in this video segment adapted from NOVA.

Earthquakes: The Seismograph
This video segment adapted from NOVA uses historical illustrations, photographs, and animations to explain how seismographs work, the difference between P and S waves, and the Richter scale.

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot!
In this Nature lesson, students will learn about different types of volcanoes, how and why they erupt and the physical impact of volcanic eruptions.

The Grand Canyon: How It Formed
This video segment adapted from NOVA uses animation to present the theory of how the Grand Canyon was formed and features rare footage of a phenomenon known as debris flow.

How to Build an Island from Scratch
Learn how the Hawaiian Islands were formed by a geothermal hotspot and resulting volcanic activity in this video segment from Nature.

Lava Sampling on Kilauea Volcano, Hawaiʻi
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientist Mike Garcia draws lava samples at the foot of the active Kilauea volcano to see if it is related to its neighboring volcano, Mauna Loa.

Mount Pinatubo: Predicting a Volcanic Eruption
This video segment adapted from NOVA relates the dramatic story of vulcanologists trying to predict the timing of the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.

Out of Proportion
Students are asked to explain how natural disasters affect environmental health.

Plate Tectonics: The Hawaiian Archipelago
This video segment adapted from NOVA uses animation to show the relationship between the movement of a tectonic plate and whether volcanoes on the Hawaiian Islands are active or dormant.

RoboSnail
In this video segment adapted from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a team from the Mechanical Engineering Department studies snail movement for inspiration that may lead to new forms of robotic locomotion.

Tectonic Plate Movement in Alaska
In this video adapted from KUAC-TV and the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, learn how tectonic plate movement is responsible for building mountains, such as the Wrangell and St. Elias Mountains.

Volcanoes in the Infrared
In this video adapted from KUAC-TV and the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, satellite imagery and infrared cameras are used to study and predict eruptions of volcanoes in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska.