Volcanoes and Earthquakes Jeopardy

Earth's layers, plate boundaries, eruptions, and quakes: a plate tectonics review for middle school earth science. Free to copy, with phone buzzers.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

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Layers of the Earth

$200
This thin, rocky outer layer of Earth is the one we live on.
What is the crust?
$400
This thickest layer of Earth lies between the crust and the core.
What is the mantle?
$600
Made mostly of iron and nickel, this layer of Earth is liquid metal.
What is the outer core?
$800
Though it is the hottest layer, this center of Earth stays solid because of enormous pressure.
What is the inner core?
$1,000
The crust and the rigid top of the mantle together form this rocky layer, broken into tectonic plates.
What is the lithosphere?

Plate Boundaries

$200
At this type of boundary, two plates move apart from each other.
What is a divergent boundary?
$400
At this type of boundary, two plates push toward each other.
What is a convergent boundary?
$600
At this type of boundary, like California's San Andreas, two plates slide past each other sideways.
What is a transform boundary?
$800
This process happens when a denser plate sinks beneath another plate into the mantle.
What is subduction?
$1,000
The Himalayas rose where the plate carrying this country collided with the Eurasian plate.
What is India?

How Volcanoes Work

$200
Melted rock beneath Earth's surface is called this.
What is magma?
$400
Once melted rock pours out onto Earth's surface, it is called this.
What is lava?
$600
This bowl-shaped opening sits at the top of many volcanoes.
What is a crater?
$800
Also called a composite volcano, this tall, steep cone like Mount Fuji is built from alternating layers of ash and hardened flows.
What is a stratovolcano?
$1,000
Hawaii's Mauna Loa is this broad, gently sloping type of volcano, built up by many thin, runny flows.
What is a shield volcano?

Shake, Rattle, Rumble

$200
A crack in Earth's crust where blocks of rock move past each other is called this.
What is a fault?
$400
A series of giant ocean waves set off by an undersea earthquake is called this.
What is a tsunami?
$600
This is the point on Earth's surface directly above where an earthquake begins.
What is the epicenter?
$800
Smaller quakes that follow a large earthquake in the same area are called these.
What are aftershocks?
$1,000
Also called the hypocenter, this is the point underground where an earthquake actually starts.
What is the focus?

Measuring Earthquakes

$200
This instrument records the shaking of the ground during an earthquake.
What is a seismograph?
$400
Scientists who study earthquakes and the waves they send through Earth are called this.
What are seismologists?
$600
The fastest seismic waves, these arrive first and can travel through solids, liquids and gases.
What are P waves?
$800
These seismic waves arrive second and cannot pass through liquid, which showed scientists that part of Earth's core is liquid.
What are S waves?
$1,000
Scientists now use this scale, not the older Richter scale, to report the size of large earthquakes.
What is the moment magnitude scale?

Famous Eruptions

$200
In 79 AD, this volcano buried the Roman city of Pompeii in ash.
What is Mount Vesuvius?
$400
This volcano in Washington State erupted in 1980, blasting away its north side.
What is Mount St. Helens?
$600
This Indonesian volcano's 1883 eruption made one of the loudest sounds in recorded history.
What is Krakatoa?
$800
The 1815 eruption of this Indonesian volcano led to 1816's Year Without a Summer.
What is Mount Tambora?
$1,000
This Icelandic volcano's 2010 eruption sent up an ash cloud that shut down air travel across much of Europe.
What is Eyjafjallajökull?

Final Jeopardy — Hot Spot

This horseshoe-shaped zone around the edges of the Pacific Ocean is home to most of the world's active volcanoes and earthquakes.

What is the Ring of Fire?

How to run this board

This board connects the dots between Earth's interior and the disasters on the news. Students review the crust, mantle, and core, the three kinds of plate boundaries, how volcanoes form and erupt, how earthquakes are measured, and a handful of famous eruptions and quakes from history.

Middle schoolers often know the vocabulary and miss the cause and effect, so ask a follow-up after a correct plate boundary answer: what happens at that boundary, a mountain, a trench, or a rift? Award a small bonus for a good explanation.

A printed map of the plates at each table helps with the Plate Boundaries and Famous Eruptions columns, and it makes the Final Jeopardy answer easy to see once it is revealed.

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