Grade 6 · Science · Lesson 25

Layers of Earth and Plate Tectonics

Earth looks solid from where you stand, but it is built like a giant onion. Slice it open and you find four layers stacked from the center outwards — and the outer skin is broken into giant pieces that slide and grind against each other. Those pieces are called tectonic plates, and the way they move is what builds mountains, opens oceans, fires volcanoes, and rattles the ground in earthquakes.

What this lesson teaches

1Identify the four main layers of Earth and describe each layer
2Explain how convection in the mantle drives plate movement
3Compare divergent, convergent, and transform plate boundaries
4Describe geological events caused by plate tectonics

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