Transition Day - Tectonic Plate Shifts

Today we worked in 2020 learning groups. We said 'Nau mai, haere mai' to our 2020 year 4 whānau for our first of two transition mornings.

We are thinking about Aotearoa's unique flora and fauna. This meant we had to do some thinking about how New Zealand got to be where it is.

This activity, where we peeled a mandarin and tacked its skin back on after, allowed us to explore how tectonic plate shifts affect the surface of our sphere - Earth!

 The earth is spherical like the mandarin, although it is difficult to see the roundness of the earth except from space. The peel represents the earth’s crust. The cracks are called faults and it is the shifting of the plates (peel) which causes earthquakes and volcanic activity.

Nik's (2020) Base Group came up with these key ideas:

• The peels (plates) move around on the mandarin (Earth)
• The peels (plates) don't fit back together like a jigsaw after they've broken apart
• In some places the peels (plates) overlap and push up (creating mountains)
• In other places, the peels (plates) have huge, deep gaps (like oceans and their trenches).

We're all very excited to be working together next year, kei te pai i a mātou!