Continental Jigsaw.

The article outlines an activity for providing a hands-on opportunity for elementary and middle school science students to study the theory of the earth's crustal change over the past several hundred million years. The theory of continents drifting away from one super continent is presented with the supportive evidence that scientists have uncovered in this century. The evidence includes paleomagnetism and magnetic stripes on the ocean floor; rocks found to be closely correlated by age and location; ancient mountain chains, once connected and now separated; the direction of scratches made by continental glaciers on bedrock; and the close match between the shelf of one continent and that of another. The article describes the procedure and lists the necessary materials for the activity, which is designed to help verify the existence of drifting continents by having students rearrange the land masses into a continental jigsaw puzzle. (TRS)