This was the most difficult lesson implementation thus far of my degree journey. It was extremely challenging for me to find students for my summer class. I ended up with a class of my two boys, my two nieces, and two of my boy’s friends, and two of their sisters. The four girls were wonderful, but the boys tried not to be goofy, but for the most part they were. They all know I am a teacher, but I think it was bizarre for them to see me in a teacher role.
I placed the students into four groups of two and each group were given two pieces of tow by four wood, clay, toothpicks, and Monopoly houses to create a fault line and a city. They placed the tow by fours on a flat surface and covered them with clay to appear as one piece. Then they added a road and house to create a city. I was surprised how much these middle school students were engaged in the creation of their fault line city. Once the groups were finished with their models, they need to make a prediction on how the land would look after the plated moved. Then they were instructed to place one board in each hand and slide their boards in the directions specified on their lab sheet for each fault, resetting the crust after each demonstration. One group of students observed that most of the damage occurs along the fault line. Eureka!
