Ron Capurso
SCIED411
Peer 2 Write-up
In my interview with Mike; a biology education major, I chose to explore Earth Science topics related to plate tectonics. I asked questions starting with simple ideas like what plates were, and eventually advanced on to more difficult concepts like subduction and volcanism. I anticipated Mike would know a great deal about these topics because of the basic level of questions I chose to ask. My expectations were that Mike would know about plate boundaries and simple ideas about how plates move. However, I had a feeling that he would get confused on jargon like “convergent, divergent, hot spot, etc.”
I planned to ask the following questions during the interview:
1) What is your definition of a crustal “plate”?
2) About how many plates are there on the Earth?
3) What makes plates move across the earth?
4) How thick are plates?
5) Is there a difference between continental crust and oceanic crust?
6) How thick are tectonic plates?
7) How fast do plates move?
8) What happens when plates meet or move apart?
9) Is new crust ever created or destroyed?
10) How does this happen?
11) How do you think this relates to the formation of Volcanoes?
11) How do you explain volcanoes that occur in the middle of plates?
12) How do you then explain earthquakes?
I did my best to remain loyal to the questions. However, I did move in different directions at times.
The results
of the interview revealed that Mike had much less knowledge of plate tectonics
than I actually anticipated. He was accurately able to describe what a plate
was. However, the processes that drive plates and what happens at plate
boundaries seemed to be foreign ideas to Mike. For instance, he had no idea
that the
Ironically,
Mike was able to provide correct answers to the questions I originally deemed
more difficult. When I asked him how volcanoes could occur in the middle of a
plate, like in
The particular question I thought he would have the most difficulty with was “How many plates are there”. I expected him to give an answer in the hundreds. I was pleasantly surprised when he provided a reasonable answer of around 10.
The answer that shocked me the most was when I asked Mike how fast plates moved apart at the Mid Atlantic Ridge. The following is an exact correspondence:
Interviewer: Do you have any approximation of about how fast a plate would move?
Mike: A lot faster than you would think if probably my best guess.
Interviewer: Have you heard of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge?
Mike: Yes
Interviewer: And
you know that is a spreading center, so the
Mike: Right
Interviewer: So how fast would you say that was spreading in miles/year, inches/year, feet/year? Give me an estimate.
Mike: Nothing too great, probably like two to three
Interviewer: 2-3 what?
Mike: Miles
Interviewer: 2-3 Miles per year?
Mike: Right, I think that’s a little high for shifting, but I think it’s a possibility
Interviewer: OK
After hearing this I was honestly perturbed. The actual rate of spreading is comparable to the growth of a fingernail. If the sea floor actually spread at the rate Mike suggested, there would be major changes in the geography of the Earth over a lifetime. A basic knowledge of geography proves this can not be the case.
To see that a college student in a science major had such notions made me wonder what kind of misconceptions a high school student might have. I often assumed that much of Earth Science was common knowledge. After doing the interview I can see that many people perceive the world around us in a false manner.
I was extremely pleased with the way the interview went. Given the chance to do it over again, I would use some interesting props and diagrams. This would give me the chance to really see the thought process of the interviewee. I feel like I may have confused Mike with some of my questioning. Next time I will clarify my questions and use a more logical order when asking them. Ideally, I would have liked Mike to go from one topic to another more seamlessly.