Experiment No. 2
Continental Drift Theory
Name:___________________________ Grade and Section:________________ Date:____________ Class no.______
Objectives:
- Discover clues for the Theory of Continental drift.
- Verify Wegener’s observation of matching continents.
- Assemble Gondwanaland from the cutouts of continents.
- Develop the idea of the continental drift.
Materials:
-
Small world map & scissors
Procedure:
1. Identify and look closely at the continents.
2. Make cutouts of the continents of Antarctica, South America, Africa, India, parts of Southeast Asia and Australia,
including Madagascar and Tasmania.
3. By simply fitting the shapes, put the continents together.
4. Once you have decided on the best fit, paste the assembled continents on your experiment paper.
Guide Questions:
1. Do you think the Earth’s surface always looked like this? Why?
2. Are there other possible arrangements of the continents? How do you say so?
3. Could the distances between continents and islands have been different? Explain.
4. Could they have been together as one landmass? Why?
5. From the shapes of Antarctica, South America, Africa, India, parts of Southeast Asia, and Australia, would it be
possible to fit them together?(Include Madagascar and Tasmania among your cutouts.) Explain.
6. If the continents had been joined together once, what implication does it have on the flora and fauna in these
continents?
7. If eventually these continents broke up, what would have happened to the flora and fauna?
8. Do you have any idea of Pangaea, Laurasia, and Gondwanaland? What are these names?
9. What types of clues could exist in our present-day Earth that might suggest the existence of the supercontinents?
10. What would make you conclude that the continents had been one large mass a long time?
Conclusion: