Monday, September 6, 2010

Earth Egg

This morning we used boiled eggs to help us understand why earthquakes happen.
If the Earth was an egg, the shell would be the crust of the Earth.
The white of the egg would be the Earth's mantle.
The yolk of the egg would be the Earth's core.











We lightly cracked the egg and imagined that the cracked pieces were the tectonic plates of the Earth. We moved them a little, and pushed some bits under other bits. It helped us to visualise how earthquakes happen.







Can you name any of the tectonic plates?



10 comments:

  1. Hi there,

    I am the teacher (Mr Thurlow) for Room 2, Burnham school. I love the egg experiment to understand how the tectonic plates work.Can I use this experiment when we start back on Monday? I can say that when the first quake struck it was like a freight train going through my house, my family wasn't very prepared. We would interested in using skype with your class.
    Mr THURLOW

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  2. yesterday we eat boiled egg we never had boiled egg mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  3. Dear Mr Thurlow
    I would be quite happy for you to use the experiment. I found the idea on a website but I can't remember which one because I looked through so many on the weekend, trying to find suitable ideas to help younger children.
    We have been looking at your site for a while and would enjoy skyping with you sometime.
    Email me on judymckenzir@ras.school.nz and we can set it up.
    Regards
    Judy Mckenzie

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  4. If I lived in Christchurch we wold be turtle safe.



    from Tessa and Jiajia

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  5. Dear Mrs. McKenzie,
    This is Ryan, I think the egg earth is very interesting. I hate earthquakes because the damage land. About how many times does an earthquake urupt a year?

    From,
    Ryan

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  6. Mrs McKenzie and class B4September 9, 2010 at 12:44 PM

    Hello Ryan
    The sad thing about this earthquake is that there were lots of lovely old heritage buildings in Christchurch that are now damaged and will probably have to be pulled down.
    You would be surprised at how many quakes there are around the world every day. We don't even feel most of them.
    If you look on our 'Earthquake' post choose the Earthquakes for Kids link to find out more.
    from Mrs McKenzie

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  7. Hi,I am Tara from Room 1 at Tokomaru School.The picture is very interesting. Could you please tell me how you did it?

    From Tara.

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  8. Mrs McKenzie and class B4September 14, 2010 at 12:22 PM

    Hello Tara
    It's nice to get a comment from you.
    We had to hard-boil the eggs first. Can you imagine the mess otherwise!
    We had to crack the eggs without breaking all of the shell off and that was tricky for some children.
    You might also like to look at our enviro post of when we pretended the earth was an apple.
    from Mrs McKenzie

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  9. Dear b4,

    if the earth is an egg we will sink to it's core. The earth would change if it was an egg because if we step on it we will sink like quick sand and no grass.

    imagine well, tristan

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