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I am looking for any suggestions for how to teach students about the Earth Layers through exploration. I know I read or hear an idea where students are given unmarked cans and they have to determine what is inside of these cans (like fruits or vegetables). Has anyone else heard about this idea or have any other suggestions for how to teach Earth layers through hands on activities? I would be grateful for any suggestions.

Hi Dalena- It would be helpful to know what grade level you teach. I have access to an activity where students use seismograms from a number of different stations around the planet to calculate the diameter of Earth's outer core. It would be most suitable for high school students. If it s something you would like to check out, let me know. I need to gather the various files from my group who co-presented it with me last fall.

There are some great activities on the following website: need.org

Chris, That would be great if you could post the files you mentioned. I teach high school astronomy, and that seems like a good activity for my students to perform. It sounds like they would be using real data from actual earthquakes, correct?

The files I mentioned relating to the activity where you can use seismic data to calculate the radius of the Earth's Outer core can be found at the MIQuakes site under "MIQuakes Workshop Materials" in the folder "MESTA/MAEOE Conference Workshop 2013". To use the actual sac files you will need to also download software called AmaSeis. Here is the source: http://harvey.binghamton.edu/~ajones/AmaSeis.html I haven't posted the sac files yet. We shared the activity in a paper pencil version just using copies of the seismograms generated from the sac files. I need to get the sac files posted and will hopefully get time to do so soon. Here is the URL for the main MIQuakes Google site: https://sites.google.com/site/miquakes/home