Plate Boundaries and Volcanoes and is replicated here as part of
the SERC Pedagogic Service. Course: Geology of the National
Parks I have students work in groups of three or four, studying
maps of volcanic activity around the world, on a base map of
tectonic plate boundaries. I have each group then classify three
to five plate boundary types, on the basis of volcanic activity.
(In other words, I have them do the "volcanologist" portion of
Dale Sawyer's plate tectonics jigsaw. (more info) ) When they
are done, a few volunteers present their groups' classifications
to the class. I then lecture, very briefly, saying simply that
the patterns they noticed are not coincidental, and that we will
discover what causes them as the week goes on, and that a large
part of science (and geology in particular) involves trying to
explain the patterns we observe in the natural world. I
particularly like this exercise because the students can all
find patterns in the data, and have fun doing it, and they are
doing science -- ev