The question came up about where are good places for geothermal energy, and the answer, of course, was to introduce plate tectonics. It was a quick introduction, and a refresher for the 8th graders, but the interest was there and it seemed impactful.
It also provided a link to talk about the Icelandic volcano that’s been disrupting air traffic in Europe. NASA has an amazing picture of the eruption on its Picture of the Day for April 19th.
Google Maps is a great tool for showing features like the mid-ocean ridges (use the satellite view), zooming in and out of the mountain ranges, tracing the Hawaii hotspot and watching East Africa split apart.
[googleMap name=”Mozambique Channel” description=”East African Rifting” width=”400″ height=”350″ mapzoom=”4″ mousewheel=”false” directions_to=”false”]-21, 40[/googleMap]