Applying Differentiated Instruction: Earthquakes Lesson Plan
Unit: Plate Tectonics
Designer: Rachael Reeves
Lesson 3 of 5
Topic: Earthquakes
Teaching Date: Nov. 23, 2010
Subject/Course: Earth Science
Grade Level: 9/10
Time Frame: One 90 minute block
Context:
This lesson is designed for an Earth Science class of approximately 25 students, a majority of which are
freshman (although there are also a handful of sophomores who failed the class last year and are repeating it this
year). The class has displayed some resistance to instruction in science, but generally responds well when they are
given hands-on or exploratory assignments. For this reason, hands-on, authentic, inquiry experiences will be
incredibly important to the instruction of this unit. There are several students who have displayed predictable
patterns of misbehavior, but they generally settle down when they are asked to and are engaged in an activity.
Additionally, the class has a few students with IEPs for attention disorders; these needs should be kept in mind and
students should be given short breaks between each activity and change tasks often. In the inclusion class last
block, there are six students with IEPs and a special educator in the classroom. Giving directions, information, and
assignments in multiple formats is an important aspect of differentiation that will help these students succeed;
information should be disseminated both verbally and visually (written) every class. Hands-on and exploratory
activities will help students with attention disorders stay engaged in the instruction.
In this lesson, students will learn about the causes of earthquakes, the theory that describes earthquake
movement, how waves of energy move through the earth, and hazards associated with earthquakes. The lesson is
part of a unit on plate tectonics and earth structure.
SOL Objectives
ES.2
The student will demonstrate scientific reasoning and logic by
a. analyzing how science explains and predicts the interactions and
dynamics of complex Earth systems
ES.8 The student will investigate and understand geologic
processes including plate tectonics. Key concepts include
b. processes (faulting, folding, volcanism, metamorphism,
weathering, erosion, deposition, and sedimentation) and their
resulting features;
c. tectonic processes (subduction, rifting and sea floor spreading,
and continental collision).


Materials and Resources
Resources:
o http://www.wwnorton.com/college/geo/egeo/flash/8_3.swf
(requires computer with Internet access and projector)
o PowerPoint (requires computer with projector)
o Addwarehouse.com provided suggestions for accommodations
for students with ADD or ADHD
Materials needed for lesson:
o Slinky
o Copies of guided notes
o Copies of Earthquake Hazards Frame Routine
o Meter stick





Outcome Objectives
Students will be able to explain
elastic rebound theory, which
describes how earthquakes
occur
Students will be able to identify
the difference between swaves, p-waves, and surface
waves
Students will be able to
describe hazards associated
with earthquakes
Students will be able to locate
the epicenter of an earthquake
when given the distance of
epicenter from three seismic
stations
Homework
No homework is associated
with this lesson, however, my
CT has several longer-term
projects (unit packet) and a
worksheet he produced that he
wanted to assign for
homework after the lesson

Advance Preparation:
o 3-hole punch worksheets
o Set up projector, PowerPoint, and video
Instructional Procedures:
Minutes 1-7
Activating background knowledge/curiosity: Earthquake competition. Ask students write down how often they think
earthquakes happen (~ every 10 seconds). Narrow down the answers until you get the student with the closest
answer (they get a piece of candy). Talk about the answer briefly. Repeat for “How many earthquakes have the
United States Geologic Survey recorded so far in 2010 in the United States?” (7,099) and “How many earthquakes
have been measured globally so far in 2010?” (17,604)
Minutes 7-20
Ask students what an earthquake is. Can anyone give an example? Show a few examples of earthquakes (Haiti in
2010 and San Francisco 1906). Obviously, earthquakes can be extremely destructive. How do we measure how big
an earthquake is?
 Moment magnitude indicates the energy released at the earthquakes source
 Also qualitative (rather than quantitative) measures for earthquake destructiveness
 Richter scale (each magnitude increase represents a 10 times increase in the amount of energy released
by the earthquake).
o Clap activity: Tell students we are going to pretend we are an earthquake hitting Lafayette High
School. Start at a Richter number of 5. Explain that this is a moderate earthquake that may
damage some buildings. Clap once. Now move up to the next whole number on the scale, a 6. This
means I need to clap 10 times. To move up to 7, you would need to clap 100 times- give students
one minute to try to clap 100 times. Have students tell you how many claps it would take to
represent a magnitude 8, 9, and 10 earthquake (to move up to 8, I need to clap 1000 times; to
move up to 9, 10,000, to represent a magnitude 10 earthquake, I would need to clap my hands
100,000 times). Make sure students are thinking about why they are clapping, not just how fast
they can clap, by asking them questions.
Minutes 20-45
Text-based activity: Read pages 222-224 in the McDougal book. Complete a Frame with your partner. Both
partners should completely fill out their Frame. After ~20 minutes, wrap it up and ask for one group to summarize
each hazard (ground shaking/foundation failure; aftershocks/fire; tsunamis)
Minutes 45-55
Why do earthquakes happen? Stress is building up in the lithosphere. What is the lithosphere? Eventually, so much
stress builds up that it is released through movement along faults. Have a student read the definition from the slide.
 Most of the time, friction prevents the planes from moving, so strain builds up, causing the plates to deform
or change shape. Eventually, the strain becomes great enough to overcome the friction and the plates
move suddenly, causing an earthquake. The plates then snap back to the shape they had before they were
deformed, but at new locations relative to one another.
 Relate it to someone poking you: your stress levels will be going up, but you might not react right away.
The more stressed you get, the more explosive your reaction will be.
 Demonstrate with a meter stick on a table
The location where the rocks first move is called the focus.
The point on the surface directly above the focus is called the epicenter.
Minutes 55-70
When earthquakes happen, the release a lot of energy in the form of waves. Types of waves: P-waves, S-waves,
and surface waves.
 Demo with Slinky (use a student to help):
o As P-waves travel through rock, the rock particles are compressed and expanded before returning
to their original position.
o


As S-waves travel through rock, the rock particles move at right angles to the direction in which the
wave is traveling.
Put page 215 under the document camera. Have students draw pictures of the Slinky demo or the wave
diagram on page 215 (McDougal).
Talk about S wave shadow using the diagram- as students if they know what the squiggly lines are.
Minutes 70-80
Explain what a seismogram is (the machine) and a seismograph (the result graph). Show the video on how
seismographs work.
 http://www.wwnorton.com/college/geo/egeo/flash/8_3.swf
Minutes 80-90
Seismographs show scientists the difference in arrival time between P-waves and S-waves. This arrival time tells
you how far from the epicenter you are. Triangulate the epicenter by using the distance measurements from
seismograms in three different places. Where all three circles overlap is where the epicenter was. Practice finding
an epicenter on your own.
If there is extra time, have students write 3 questions they have for next class (things they didn’t understand or want
to explore further) and do a review (offering candy).
Universal Design for Learning:
Diverse learners require diverse instructional methods. I tried to address the needs of all students by providing
information in multiple formats and by explicitly addressing each part of UDL.
 Representation: I provided multiple examples of earthquakes (historical 1906 San Francisco, 1989 World
Series earthquake in California, recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile) and presented vital content in
multiple formats (relating Elastic Rebound Theory to a sibling poking you and showing what happens with a
yard stick). I also highlighted important information by providing a guided notes worksheet to help students
organize information as it was talked about. Finally, I activated background knowledge by asking students
to provide earthquake examples and give me their own definitions of earthquakes at the very beginning of
the lesson.
 Action and Expression: To teach students how to find the epicenter of an earthquake, I used scaffolding to
bring students towards practicing the skill on their own. I began by walking the class through an example,
then asked students to do the next few examples as they got progressively more difficult. I provided
multiple opportunities for students to practice finding the epicenter of an earthquake and reviewed each
example with the class, providing corrective and reinforcing feedback when necessary.
 Engagement: During the text-based portion of the lesson, I allowed students to choose their partner, thus
allowing students to choose who they felt comfortable sharing knowledge with. Students worked together to
learn as much information as they wanted to or were capable of doing. We then summarized the
information as a class to make sure everyone had the important parts of the lesson. I also allowed the
students to choose the book they felt most comfortable working with and provided the page numbers for
both books. Students could also use the online textbook if they wanted to.
Differentiation/ Accommodations / Modifications:
 Delivery of instructions and material in multiple formats (verbal and written)
 Guided notes to help students identify important information
 Kinesthetic, hands-on activities (example: clapping to model Richter Scale)
 Frame Routine to organize earthquake hazards
 Frequent changes to instructional delivery to help students with attention disorders
 Positive reinforcement of behavior, participation, study skills, and knowledge
 Prompt students to take notes when important information is being delivered and to put notes in notebook
Assessment
Formative
Summative
 Participation and engagement (informal)
 Unit quiz/test at the end of the 5 lesson sequence
 Completion of guided notes and Frame
 Volunteering to answer questions or be part of
lesson (hold Slinky, draw on board, etc.)
Attachments
 Guided notes- earthquakes/waves
 Frame- earthquake hazards
 PowerPoint “presentation” (images, earthquake locating activity)
 Screen shot of seismograph/seismogram simulation
Results and Reflections:
I taught this lesson twice on Tuesday, November 23, 2010, the day before Thanksgiving Break at Lafayette
High School. In both blocks, I thought the lesson went well; students were definitely engaged in the lesson and
seemed to understand and retain the material that was presented. I think the hands on, active nature of my lesson
helped students stay engaged by forcing them to participate. For example, I briefly explained the Richter Scale then
made everyone stand up and do a clapping activity to illustrate it. Students may have been drifting off during my
explanation, even though it was very brief, but they were forced to be active and involved during the clapping
activity. Even students who tend to remove themselves from instruction were involved in this part of the lesson. To
make sure students were thinking about why they were clapping, not just how fast they can clap, I asked students
to explain the activity and do the math as to how many times we needed to clap to represent each part of the
activity. I also involved my students by asking them for their input, having a mini “competition” at the beginning of
the block, bringing students up to the board to practice locating an earthquake, and letting students learn at their
own pace during the text-based portion of the lesson.
As this lesson also served as my text-based lesson for my Reading & Writing course, I included a textbased portion of the lesson. I chose to have students read a portion of the textbook (less than 2 pages in length) on
the hazards associated with earthquakes and complete a Frame with a partner. I know the students I taught are
strong readers and I felt comfortable using a text with them. However, I let them work with partners so they could
collaborate, clarify, and create better products. To begin the activity, I gave the directions verbally after I handed out
the Frame sheet. Students had a bit of difficulty starting the assignment, but once they began they produced good
results. Although they are 9th graders who often need prompting to start an assignment, I think I could have
reduced the transition time by explaining the directions more explicitly. I didn’t think about the fact that most
students have never seen a worksheet organized like this before and that they would need help understanding it.
During both blocks, I had to go around the room and explain how the Frame was organized and clarify my
directions to almost every group individually. Next time, I would project the Frame on the board with the document
camera and explain the different parts of the Frame and where different pieces of information fit into the organizer
before I let students begin working on their own.
Teaching this lesson also reinforced the idea that teachers need to be incredibly flexible; in this case, I was
forced to be flexible with my time and make in-the-moment time-based decisions. When I got to school Tuesday
morning, I made my copies and set up the room for my lesson. Then, my CT asked if he could finish a movie about
plate tectonics they had started the previous class. “At most,” he said, “it will take 15 minutes.” I could spare 15
minutes, so of course I said it was fine. 50 minutes into the block, after he had complete a worksheet, watched 20
minutes of film, and wasted 15 minutes on secretarial jobs, he gave me the cue that I could begin fitting my 90
minute lesson into the next 40 minutes of class. I knew it wasn’t going to happen, but I tried my best and got
through most of the important material without skipping any of the activities or sacrificing engaging instruction. The
class learned about the Richter Scale and Elastic Rebound Theory, but we did not have time for waves or locating
an epicenter. During the second block, we covered the entire lesson for several reasons: my CT gave me about 65
minutes instead of 40 minutes; it was the Advanced Earth Science class so they moved a bit faster than the
General Earth Science class, and I had already taught the lesson once so I knew what changes to make. The
second block moved so quickly that I was a bit caught of guard by a few extra minutes left over at the end, which I
filled wit an activity my CT had started with them the day before, rather than one of the extra activities I had
prepared in case there was extra time. Although I think I handled it ok this time, I think time management will be a
challenge for me in my future teaching. As I progress, I hope to get better at judging how long it will take to do
activities and get better at managing my time during a lesson.
Name: _____________________
Date:_________________
Earthquakes!
Holt Chapter 6 (98 – 115), McDougal Chapter 10 (212-230)
An earthquake is a shaking of the Earth’s crust caused by a release of energy.
The theory that describes how earthquakes release energy is called ___________________________.
It states that __________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Label the following parts of an earthquake (focus, epicenter, fault):
Earthquakes release 3 types energy in the form of waves: P-waves, S-waves, and surface waves
Primary Waves
(P-Waves)
Secondary Waves
(S-Waves)
 Body wave
 First to arrive
 Travel through
any material
 Compression
 Body wave
 Second to arrive
 Travel only
through solids
 Rock moves
perpendicular to
wave direction
Surface Waves
(L-waves)



Love waves = side to
side movement
Rayleigh waves =
elliptical movement
Cause damage!
McDougal book, page s 222-223
Name:____________________
How do we measure the strength of an earthquake?