Year 4 investigate plate tectonics

As we start our topic on ‘Natural Disasters’, Year 4 have been finding out about the structure of the earth this week and how this can lead to volcanoes and earthquakes. We’ve looked at what the earth is like on the inside, from the dense, hot inner core, to the crust that moves around on tectonic plates. In groups, we created mimes, using our bodies to show these movements and the effect they have at plate boundaries. This helped us then write an explanation of how the main three types of plate boundary move and how they can cause natural disasters. We were all fascinated by how the continents have moved over millions of years so that the world looks the way it is today. Then we looked at how scientists predict it will look in 100 million years time - we’ll probably be under the sea in Great Missenden! This is what we have learned this week:

There are 4 layers of the earth - the inner core, outer core, mantle and crust. The mantle is split into the upper and lower mantle. Zoe

There is a ‘Ring of fire’ with the most dangerous active volcanoes. Jago.

I enjoyed acting out a conservative plate boundary showing how friction causes an earthquake. Maya

It was so cool to see how the earth will look in 100 million years. Emilie

I enjoyed learning about volcanoes and it was very fun acting them out. Stanley