Name_____________________ Period_____________________

Candy Bar Tectonics Problem: How do the lithospheric plates move about on the earths surface, and what geologic features form as a
result of that movement?

Directions: Follow the checklist for the activity today. Place a check mark as you go through each part of the
checklist. Also answer the questions in complete sentences.

THE TEACHER WILL LET YOU KNOW

WHEN ITS THE EDIBLE PORTION OF THE ACTIVITY

.Procedures:

____ A. Use the plastic fork to make a few cracks across the middle portion of its top. The cracked chocolate models the plates of the earth. 1. What layer of the earth does the chocolate represent?

____B. Hold the candy bar top facing up, with your left thumb and index finger holding the sides of one end and your right thumb and index finger holding the sides of the other. ____C. Slowly stretch the candy bar, pulling it apart a few millimeters at most. The chocolate should separate exposing the caramel. The exposed caramel represents new material that can rise to the earths surface. 2. What type of plate boundary is represented here?

3. What does the caramel represent (dont say new material that can rise)?

_____D. Slowly push the stretched candy bar back together again. The brittle chocolate may crumble. On the other hand, mountain ranges may form when the pieces of the chocolate plates collide. Also, one chocolate plate may slide beneath another.

4. What type of plate boundary is represented here?

5.

Explain what you saw happen.

_____E. Continue to slowly pull the candy bar apart and push it back together again. Do this until you have a good sense of how plates can be moved about by the motion of the caramel underneath. When the plates are pulled apart, material from beneath can move to the surface. When plates are pushed together they can collide, or one can slide beneath another.

_____F. Once you have finished, pull the candy bar completely apart. Look at its exposed interior and think of the candy bar as a model of Earths layers. 6. Sketch the candy bar and label each layer of the bar with the corresponding layer of the earth.

7. What geologic feature would you expect to see at a point where two plates are diverging?

8. What geologic feature would you expect to see at a point where two plates containing continental crust boundaries are converging?

9. What geologic feature would you expect to see where two plates containing oceanic crust boundaries are converging?

12. One limitation of this model is that human effort your finger pulling and pushing are not natural geologic processes. Explain the natural processes that cause the motion of the earths plates.

13. A transform boundary was not modeled in this lab. Draw & label a picture and then describe how you could model one of these boundaries using the Milky Way bar.

14. Explain three ways this model is a good model of plate tectonics.

15. Explain three ways this model is not a good model of plate tectonics.