Plate tectonics is a concept required under Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, a checklist of subjects all students must master. The product addresses a real-world concern, too. Quick response (QR) codes on the mat link to animations of plate movement, video interviews with scientists, puzzles, quizzes and other learning materials to test how well students understand the content. The opposite side touches on how the search for evidence derived from many other areas of science, such as seismology, oceanography, physics and chemistry, and why the hypothesis was met bitterly at first by the established geological community. One side of the accompanying placemat illustrates how the pieces fit together and discusses the fossil, glacial and geological evidence supporting the theory. Here’s how it works: Middle-schoolers pound a glob of clay or Play-Doh into a thin oval, and then mash the 8-inch resin-composite cutter down to create continent-shaped slices. As geological evidence emerged in the 1960s to support theories of plate tectonics, the scientific community caught the drift, and eventually, it became a staple of junior-high science classes.īut how might a classroom of young students best learn these concepts? Chemistry professor Eric Simanek and six TCU science majors think they have developed a helpful teaching aid - a Pangea cookie cutter and educational placemat they call Playtectonics. By 1926, he had coined the name Pangea for the ancient supercontinent that existed about 225 million years ago, during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. The hypothesis that the continents were joined then slowly pulled apart was first put forward by Dutch cartographer Abraham Ortelius in 1596 and was fully developed by German meteorologist Alfred Wegener in 1912. The shapes of South America and Africa, in particular, seem to be a perfect fit. Think back to middle school and you probably remember learning how the Earth’s continents once connected together like a puzzle.
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