Name: ______________________________________ Date: ________________________
Student Exploration: Building Pangaea
Vocabulary:
Continental drift – the theory that the continents are moving very slowly.
Fossil – the remains, traces, or imprint of an ancient living thing preserved in rock.
Glacier – a large, slowly moving body of snow and ice.
Ice age – a time when Earth was very cold and large areas were covered by glaciers.
Landmass – a large, unbroken area of land.
Pangaea – an ancient supercontinent that scientists believe existed from about 200 to 300
million years ago.
Supercontinent – a single landmass that includes two or more continents.
Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.)
1. Antarctica is a frozen land, so cold and icy that no trees can grow there. Yet scientists have
discovered fossils (remains preserved in rock) of ancient trees in Antarctica.
What do you think this means? I thick this means that at one point that antacid may not have
been so cold and icy or that there were animals that could take the frozen land.
2. The Himalayas in central Asia are the tallest mountains in the world. But fossils of seashells
can be found high in these mountains, far from any ocean.
How do you think they got there? At one point this tall tall mountain could have been apart of
the ocean or maybe just the sand was and so it all blends together.
Gizmo Warm-up
1. The Gizmo allows you to drag and rotate all the major
landmasses on Earth.
To drag a landmass, grab it in the middle.
To rotate a landmass, grab it near the edge.
Learn the names by opening the Tools menu and
dragging the Help icon over the landmasses.
Mark where you live. Open the Tools menu and
drag an arrow to your location.
2. Test your geography skills. Drag and rotate landmasses randomly until you make a big
mess. Then try to move them back to their original positions.
, When you have made the best map you can, open the Tools menu, select Screen shot,
and copy the image into a blank document. Label the image “Map 1.”
Click Reset. Compare your map to the real one. How well did you do? __I had all of the
continents in the same spot but they were off by a little bit.
Get the Gizmo ready:
Activity A:
If necessary, click reset.
Solving the puzzle
Check that the Evidence shown is none.
Introduction: In 1915, a German scientist named Alfred Wegener (VAY-guh-ner) proposed the
theory of continental drift. According to this theory, the landmasses once were joined into a
supercontinent called Pangaea. The landmasses then slowly drifted to their current positions.
Question: What did Pangaea look like?
1. Observe: Drag South America close to Africa. Look at their coastlines. What do you notice?
They fit together almost perfectly exact fro me of the ridges.
2. Explore: Try to fit all the landmasses together like a puzzle.
As much as possible, avoid overlapping landmasses.
Student Exploration: Building Pangaea
Vocabulary:
Continental drift – the theory that the continents are moving very slowly.
Fossil – the remains, traces, or imprint of an ancient living thing preserved in rock.
Glacier – a large, slowly moving body of snow and ice.
Ice age – a time when Earth was very cold and large areas were covered by glaciers.
Landmass – a large, unbroken area of land.
Pangaea – an ancient supercontinent that scientists believe existed from about 200 to 300
million years ago.
Supercontinent – a single landmass that includes two or more continents.
Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.)
1. Antarctica is a frozen land, so cold and icy that no trees can grow there. Yet scientists have
discovered fossils (remains preserved in rock) of ancient trees in Antarctica.
What do you think this means? I thick this means that at one point that antacid may not have
been so cold and icy or that there were animals that could take the frozen land.
2. The Himalayas in central Asia are the tallest mountains in the world. But fossils of seashells
can be found high in these mountains, far from any ocean.
How do you think they got there? At one point this tall tall mountain could have been apart of
the ocean or maybe just the sand was and so it all blends together.
Gizmo Warm-up
1. The Gizmo allows you to drag and rotate all the major
landmasses on Earth.
To drag a landmass, grab it in the middle.
To rotate a landmass, grab it near the edge.
Learn the names by opening the Tools menu and
dragging the Help icon over the landmasses.
Mark where you live. Open the Tools menu and
drag an arrow to your location.
2. Test your geography skills. Drag and rotate landmasses randomly until you make a big
mess. Then try to move them back to their original positions.
, When you have made the best map you can, open the Tools menu, select Screen shot,
and copy the image into a blank document. Label the image “Map 1.”
Click Reset. Compare your map to the real one. How well did you do? __I had all of the
continents in the same spot but they were off by a little bit.
Get the Gizmo ready:
Activity A:
If necessary, click reset.
Solving the puzzle
Check that the Evidence shown is none.
Introduction: In 1915, a German scientist named Alfred Wegener (VAY-guh-ner) proposed the
theory of continental drift. According to this theory, the landmasses once were joined into a
supercontinent called Pangaea. The landmasses then slowly drifted to their current positions.
Question: What did Pangaea look like?
1. Observe: Drag South America close to Africa. Look at their coastlines. What do you notice?
They fit together almost perfectly exact fro me of the ridges.
2. Explore: Try to fit all the landmasses together like a puzzle.
As much as possible, avoid overlapping landmasses.
