Learning Log: Continental Drift and Convection

I have learned that Convection is the reason for continental drift. It works by using heat to make the different parts of the earth, such as the core or the mantle, have flows that move in circles. On the heated side the circle begins, and as it turns it cools down but is heated again when it reaches the beginning. Heat rises, cold sinks. The question is, how does the convection cause continental drift? As the hot parts of the circle hit the crust, it pushes the land to the side and creates new land. Over a long period of time this would be enough to move a continent from one side of the earth to the other. 


In the unit of science we have been working on, we have done many labs to help our understanding of how continental drift works. For example, we did one about convection, using rice. We heated water and put rice into the heated water. As it got hotter the rice started to turn inside the beaker, and as it cooled it sank back to the bottom. This lab taught us that heat rises and cold sinks. We also did a bunch of mini labs. They included, Hot and Cold Balloons, Fun Fountains, Floating Egg, and Lava Lamps. All of these helped to better our understanding and give us more knowledge about what heat and other materials do to change what happens to something. Earlier in the unit we also did a few magnetism lab to teach us about the magnetic field around the earth and the core being one huge electromagnet around the earth. We learned that the north and south poll of this electro magnet rotates until the north and south poll have switched sides. At the end we did a convection demonstration as a whole class. We had a big container of water that was heated on one side and cooled on the other. Then we added a drop of dye to both of the sides and watched what happened. This taught us how convection worked.