Earth Processes: Scales of Time and Space Science Games

In this series of games, your students will learn about the vast array of geological processes that happen on Earth, both small and large, and fast and slow. The Earth Processes: Scales of Time and Space learning objective — based on NGSS and state standards — delivers improved student engagement and academic performance in your classroom, as demonstrated by research.

Scroll down for a preview of this learning objective’s games and the concepts they drive home.

Concepts Covered

All around us, the earth is in a constant state of change, and it’s been that way since its formation. Some of these changes happen extremely slowly, over the course of those billions of years, while others happen in an instant. Some take place on a microscopic scale, others affect the entire planet.

The most gradual processes include the formation of mountains and ocean bases, continental drift, deposition, and some types of erosion. The fastest processes include earthquakes, eruptions, asteroid impacts, the motion of currents, the water cycle, and weather processes. Other processes happen relatively quickly on the geologic time scale, but still very slowly from a human standpoint, like glacial flow, climate change, weathering, and other types of erosion.

The largest processes on a physical scale occur globally, like plate tectonics, the circulation of the oceans and atmosphere, and very large impacts and eruptions. The smallest happen on a microscopic scale. These include mineral crystallization, chemical reactions within rocks, and other interactions between atoms and molecules.

Regional processes include massive earthquakes, eruptions, and impacts, as well as some weathering, erosion, and deposition. Local processes include landslides and smaller versions of the same processes that occur on a regional scale.

All of these geological processes have always acted on essentially the same time scales and physical scales as they do today.

A preview of each game in the learning objective is found below.

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