Looking for ideas for your earthquakes lesson plan? I got you. Earthquakes are fascinating. The way that our whole world works is fascinating, and we are still learning more about it every day.
Do you know why earthquakes happen? The Earth’s core is like a burner, and puts pressure on the mantle, which is like burning soup. Convection occurs in the mantle, which makes Earth’s plates move.
As more stress is applied, more energy is stored (potential energy). When it reaches the breaking point, plates will break or slip along a fault. Energy is released. This is an earthquake!
In this post, I share five earthquake lesson ideas that will WOW your students. First, I share some WONDER strategies that will help your students become internally motivated to learn more about earthquakes. Second, I share an interactive lesson that will teach your students all about earthquakes using the 7 steps to help students retain information. Finally, I share WIDEN activities to help expand your students’ knowledge on this topic.
What will you add to your next earthquake lesson plan for middle school?
Introduction to Earthquakes – WONDER Strategies
Getting your students to wonder about a topic should be your number one goal before teaching a lesson. Why? Once your students are internally motivated to learn, the rest is just a walk in the park. Here are two different wonder activities you can try before teaching earthquakes.
Explore the Latest Earthquakes
Have your students take a look at the latest earthquakes by the USGS. They can explore the latest 2.5+ magnitude earthquakes. They can sort them by newest or oldest or largest or smallest. They can also click on each individual earthquake to learn more about it.
As students explore this interactive map, they can answer these guiding questions.
- Are earthquakes evenly distributed around the world? If not, are there specific regions that see more seismic activity?
- How does the magnitude of the earthquakes vary?
- How do the location of the earthquakes relate to plate boundaries?
- Are there any recent earthquakes near populated areas? Why is this important to know?
- What questions do you have about the latest earthquakes?
Here is another resource they can explore. It’s the Interactive Earthquake Browser. Students can choose a specific date range and magnitude range to explore past earthquakes. The same guiding questions could applied to this resource as well.
Earthquakes Story Time
As with any severe weather or natural disasters, I like to allow students to share any of their experiences.
Your students may or may not have an experience with an earthquake, but if they have, you can open the floor for them to share. You can open the discussion for just sharing, or you can have a more structured activity.
- Tell students that everyone’s experience with earthquakes may be different. By sharing stories, you can gain more insight into this natural phenomenon.
- Ask students to reflect on any personal experience they have with earthquakes. This could be a time they felt an earthquake, heard about one on the news, discussed an earthquake preparation plan, or something else.
- Students can record their experience on a piece of paper by writing or drawing.
- After students have completed their personal experience reflection, students can get into small groups to share their experience with each other.
- After, students can discuss as a whole class and some students may want to share out loud.
Earthquakes Interactive Lesson
If you’re looking for an earthquakes lesson, this is the one. This is an interactive lesson! Interactives lessons are great because they help students learn the material in an engaging way and will help them store the information in their long-term memory. They use research-based strategies such as highlighting important information and segmenting information.
This earthquakes interactive lesson will help your students learn all about why earthquakes happen, an earthquake summary, plate tectonics, lithosphere, focus and epicenter, primary, secondary, and surface waves, tsunamis, the Ring of Fire, and more! This a great lesson to do after plate tectonics.
Inside of the lesson, there are activities throughout to help students process information. These include, a KWL, drag-and-drop activities, exploring outside resources, a Venn diagram, and more!
You can find this in the Bright in the Middle Shop.
You can also find this on TPT.
This is a wonderful addition to you lesson plan on earthquakes.
Earthquakes Lesson Plan Ideas to WIDEN Student Knowledge
After students learn about plate tectonics and earthquakes, if time allows, it’s great to add extension WIDEN activities to your earthquakes lesson plan. Here are two ideas to try!
Earthquakes Podcast
Podcasts are great for extending student knowledge. Whether you have students listen to one and reflect or create their own, there is so much knowledge to gain.
Check out this podcast on earthquakes!
If you don’t have a podcast reflection sheet, there are many that you can find online.
Earthquakes STEM Activity
Another great extension activity to do is a STEM activity. An awesome one for students to do is to create an earthquake-resistant structure. Students can use everyday materials to design and build a structure that can withstand a simulated earthquake. I’ve also seen this done with marshmallows, toothpicks, and cardboard.
Students can work in groups for this activity!
- After learning about earthquakes students can research basic ideas for earthquake resistant designs.
- Then, they should plan their design and think about what materials they will be able to use based on what is available.
- Next, it’s time to create. Students can collect their materials and begin to build based on their design.
- Finally, it’s time to test it out. Each group can take turns to test their structure on a shake table. Try to simulate earthquakes of different magnitudes, starting with the lowest of course.
- Students can discuss and record the observations from the tests.
- Have a time of reflection and discussion as a class.
Here is a great resource to check out for this activity.
Here are some examples of other ways to create a shake table:
Build an Earthquake Shake Table
Enjoy creating your lesson plan about earthquakes!
Help your students master science content!
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