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6th grade · Science · Unit 3 of 7

Plate Tectonics

Moving plates, quakes and volcanoes

What your child practices

Practices the evidence that Earth's plates move (fossils, rocks, the shapes of continents and the seafloor), what happens at plate boundaries, and how scientists forecast earthquakes and volcanoes to keep people safe.

Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards benchmark: 6E.2.1.1.2; 6E.2.1.1.3 · fossils, rocks, continents and seafloor as evidence of plate motion, and forecasting natural hazards

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Earth's surface is broken into plates that move slowly.
  2. Plates push together at convergent boundaries, pull apart at divergent ones and slide past at transform ones.
  3. Most earthquakes and volcanoes are at plate edges. Places far from edges, like Minnesota, rarely have strong quakes.
  4. Matching fossils and rocks on different continents supported continental drift.

Example: Two plates move toward each other. What kind of boundary is this? Divergent means apart; transform means sliding past. Pushing together is convergent. Answer: convergent

Plate Tectonics in Minnesota

In the Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards, this is unit 3 of 7 in 6th grade Science, after The Rock Cycle and before Earth's Moving Surface.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Minnesota Department of Education (MDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Where do most earthquakes and volcanoes occur?

    • in the middle of oceans only
    • only in deserts
    • near plate boundaries
    • only near equators

  2. Question 2

    What is magma called after it erupts onto the surface?

    • lava
    • ash
    • sediment
    • bedrock

  3. Question 3

    The Earth's rigid outer layer, broken into pieces, is called the…

    • atmosphere
    • outer core
    • asthenosphere
    • lithosphere

  4. Question 4

    The Queen Charlotte Fault off Haida Gwaii is a boundary where plates…

    • sink into the core
    • pull apart to make a new ocean
    • slide sideways past each other
    • collide to make a mountain range

  5. Question 5

    Which is the thickest layer of the Earth?

    • the inner core
    • the mantle
    • the crust
    • the outer core

  6. Question 6

    What happens at a subduction zone?

    • Two plates move apart.
    • A plate melts above ground.
    • One plate slides beneath another into the mantle.
    • Two plates slide sideways.

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