 Welcome to Mrs. Dorfman's 5th Grade G&T Class Website!
Each student in our class has created a webpage about a different culture from around the world. Click on the links below to view the pages. Note: some are still "under construction".
CLICK HERE to learn about ARGENTINA.
CLICK HERE to learn about BHUTAN.
CLICK HERE to learn about BRAZIL.
CLICK HERE to learn about CHINA.
CLICK HERE to learn about CUBA.
CLICK HERE to learn about ETHIOPIA.
CLICK HERE to learn about GUATEMALA.
CLICK HERE to learn about JAPAN.
CLICK HERE to learn about MONGOLIA.
CLICK HERE to learn about SOUTH AFRICA.
CLICK HERE to learn about SAMOA.
CLICK HERE to learn about UZBEKISTAN.
CLICK HERE to learn about VIETNAM.
 This map shows an area of the Caribbean where there is a boundary between two tectonic plates. The American Plate is to the North, and the Caribbean Plate is to the South. Where they meet is the Cayman Trough, a deep valley where the plates pull apart. Where the plates separate, molten rock wells up and hardens on the edges of the plates. By studying the rocks in this deep trough, four times deeper than the Grand Canyon, scientists can learn about the Earth's mantle.
The cross section of the sea floor, below shows the different layers found at different depths. Unlike canyons on land, where the deepest rocks are the oldest, in the Cayman rift valley the deepest rocks are the youngest, formed by the magma crystallizing in the rift.
Fifth Graders visited Sandy Hook and are learning about the ocean in Science class.
What would YOU like to learn about the ocean?
Some 5th Graders have created webpages to help answer your questions.
Let's follow our journey on a map. Click here for interactive map.
THE OCEANS
About 70% of the Earth's surface is covered with oceans and seas, which contain about 97% of the planet's total water. This great amount of water affects our temperature and our climate. We can see this very clearly right now, during hurricane season, when powerful storms form over the ocean. The oceans soak up heat from the sun, and currents in the water move the heat around the Earth, warming the air and the neighboring land. The ocean is always moving because of currents.
Ocean Currents
Water moves deep in the ocean because of differences in water temperature and in salinity--that means how salty the water is. Water moves on the surface of the ocean because of the wind. The currents form into huge circular patterns called current gyres. Many currents have been named, but the seven major ones are: the West Wind Drift (or the Antarctic Circumpolar Current), East Wind Drift, the North and South Equatorial currents, the Peru Current, the Kuroshio Current, and the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream moves warm water from near the Gulf of Mexico across the Atlantic Ocean and along the West coast of Europe, warming the land. For this reason, even though Western Europe is at the same latitudes as Canada, it has a temperate climate similar to our own.
Click here to see an illustration of ocean currents.
Because the planet is rotating, the currents spin in different directions above and below the equator. In the Northern Hemisphere, the current gyres flow in a clockwise direction, and in the Southern Hemisphere, the gyres spin in a counterclockwise direction. this is called the Coriolis Effect.
Layers of the Ocean
As this illustration shows, scientists think of the ocean as having layers. These are not sharply defined layers with clear boundaries, but rather different depths that are home to different types of marine life. As we go deeper, the light decreases and the pressure increases. Some very strange creatures live at the depths of the ocean--there's a poster about them in the 5th grade hall.
WHAT ARE MOUNTAINS?
A mountain is an area of land that rises abruptly from the surrounding region.
A mountain range is a series of many closely spaced mountains covering a particular region of the Earth.
Mountain belts are several mountain ranges that run roughly parallel to each other. The North American Cordillera, the Himalayas, the Alps, and the Appalachians are all examples of mountain belts that are composed of numerous mountain ranges.
HOW DO MOUNTAINS FORM?
Some mountains are volcanic, forming where rising magma breaks through the Earth's surface. Volcanic mountains can occur here and there within a mountain range (Mount St. Helens, Rainier, and Baker) or can occur alone because of a localized hot spot (Hawaiian Islands). Most mountains were created from tectonic forces that elevate, fold, and fault rocks. Tectonic mountains can occur as a single range (the Urals) or as a belt of several mountain ranges (North American Cordillera). Some of the major mountain systems found on the Earth's surface are: the North American Cordillera, Andes, Alps, Urals, Appalachians, Himalaya, Caledonian Belt, and the Tasman Belt.
HAVE THERE EVER BEEN TALLER MOUNTAINS ON EARTH THAN THE HIMALAYAS?
Today, the Appalachians are not the highest mountains in the world, but they once were. The Appalachians are incredibly old, possibly the world’s oldest mountain chain. All mountain chains begin as rugged, rocky peaks, but over millions of years, erosion wears them down. Young mountains like the Himalayas (10 million years old) are tall and craggy while older chains, like the Appalachians (300 million years old) are lower, their summits more rounded.
The Appalachians were created when continents crashed into one another. The earth is mostly comprised of liquid rock, magma, upon which the rigid blocks of solid rock, called plates, float. The continents drift along with the magma’s currents and sometimes slowly crash into one another. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain-building are caused by this process, called plate tectonics.
When a large plate collides with a small one, the lesser will normally slide under the larger plate, sometimes creating earthquakes as they slide back and forth. The entire earth’s surface, or lithosphere, is comprised of about a dozen large plates and several small ones.
Sometimes, however, large plates crash into one another with such violence that their edges crumble, thrusting rock upwards. When this happens, mountains are born.
The Appalachians began when North America collided with Europe. The earth began to buckle, starting in New Hampshire and running along the meeting point of the two plates. This collision began the Caledonian mountain system, which ran from what is now northern Alabama to Scotland.
Roughly 100 million years later, the southern Appalachians were formed as North America collided with Africa. The collision which created the Appalachians also formed the supercontinent Pangaea, where all the earth’s major land masses became one
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