Tectonic Times

Hey everyone!

Thanksgiving break is definitely on the minds of just about every student right now; you can practically feel the countdown energy buzzing through the hallways. However, we’re keeping things rolling and staying focused as we head into the holiday.

If families weren’t aware, I also run our On Wednesdays We Wear… campaign, and we’ve got a special one-day give coming up on Tuesday, December 3rd. Instead of wearing a color all month, we’ll be supporting CV SEEDS and wearing Red on that day, an incredible local organization that does so much for our district and the broader community. Students are not required to donate, but they’ll have the option to contribute during school lunches that day if they choose to participate.

Where We Were

We wrapped up our topics on continental drift and plate tectonics, tying together all the evidence students gathered over the past couple of weeks, from fossils to glacial markings to Wegener’s puzzle-piece continents. This all led to where we are.

Where We Are

This week, we shifted gears into volcanoes and seafloor spreading, digging deeper into how Earth’s interior moves and reshapes the surface. Students got hands-on with our Viscosity of Lava lab, always a favorite to play with the oatmeal and sugar, and we capped the week with our Earth’s Structure quiz, which covered plate boundary interactions, seismic waves, continental drift, and tectonics.

Below: Images from the Viscosity of Lava - Lab Activity

Logitech Crayons

I recently acquired Logitech Crayon styluses for our iPads. These styluses are going to allow us to keep a digital notebook using the Notes App on our iPads so that students never lose their notes, have their notes easily accessible, and reduce our printing. Hard copies will still be available for most items, but overall, students seem happy to have things in a place where nothing can go missing, and they get to use the styluses, which are pretty fun to use on the iPad. We'll mostly use them for notes at first and smaller assignments before using them a bit more heavily for other assignments once everyone has the hang of how to use them and the Notes App more proficiently. It'll be a learning curve, but it'll help students stay more organized, which is my goal. To keep organization a priority, reduce missing work, and help students be prepared for high school and beyond.

Where We’re Going

Next up, we’ll explore the Rock Cycle, and revisit Mount Everest and the other mountains we’ve mapped to understand how materials change within the geosphere over time. This will guide our conversations around the Geologic Time Scale, helping us wrap up our Earth’s History and Processes unit. From there, we’ll transition into our Natural Hazards unit in early December.

If you have any questions or want to connect further, please feel free to reach out at curtis_catwood@conestogavalley.org. You can also follow our classroom adventures on Instagram at @classwithcatwood, where I share updates and snapshots of what we’re learning.

Stay Gold,

Mr. Catwood