Plate tectonic activity ideas

[Twila]

ok, Im being told to go online and find experiments/activities to do on plate tectonics. and no
I cant get away with just doing a poster... sadly. the best I could find on search engines is boiling an egg and cracking it.. whoop-de-do. I am trying to figure something out maybe using a big styro-foam bowl, and having something stick/move on the top? Im stuck. yeah..


this should've been easy to figure something out since I was the one who hooked up barbie limbs to a hoola-hoop barbie with wire hangers that I cut and bent up, and had it rotate as a twila-version of the solar system.

Though I hate barbies with a passion... so maybe thats why I came up with that one quickly as an excuse to throw away my little cousins barbies. they freak me out. lol anyways.. any ideas?

[canalon]

Wild idea:
In a large container put 2 slow moving motors/rolling bands moving in opposite direction [magama convection cells of course] and cover with liquid (as thick as possible) [magma] put floating pieces of styrofoam on the surface [the plaques] of the liquid and look at the plaques collide, slide or whatever will happen. Good luck with that though...

[Twila]

what would you use as a motor or rolling bands?

[canalon]

Very good question.
I would probably use a direct human drive (aka handle) to move the bands just to avoid dealing with electricity and water. As for the band, I would use some thick plastic if possible with some ridges of one sort or another to improve the traction on the liquid. Bubble wrap for example.

I can see 2 rolling pins on some sort of legs with bands of bubble wrap (bubble side out/flat side on the pins) to do the rolling bands. The only problem would probably to find a setup that would fit in the kind of container that you can have access to/easily work with. But I guess in a smaller setting the outside bodies of pens and a few paper clips for the feet and handle should work.

No possibilities of Barbie slaughtering that I can see here though

[Twila]

lol thanx!

yeah I never played with barbies. I would try to burn their heads off by sticking them to a lightbulb that had been on all day when I was like 7.. lol