Animated Life: Pangea
Description
This animated short video celebrates the early 20th-century German astronomer and atmospheric scientist Alfred Wegener, who first proposed that continents once formed a single landmass and had drifted apart.
Alfred Wegener proposed the idea of continental drift to explain why continents' shapes fit together like pieces of a puzzle and why distant continents have the same fossils. During Wegener’s time, the idea was met with hostility. But after his death, a large body of evidence showed that continents do indeed move. This evidence led to the theory of plate tectonics, which is a fundamental principle in modern geology.
This short video tells Wegener’s story using animated paper puppets and narrators.
An audio descriptive version of the film is available via our media player.
Details
Alfred Wegener, continent, continental drift, Earth, fossil, landmass, plate tectonics
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Curriculum Connections
HS-ESS1.C, HS-ESS2.B
SYI-2
I.A