Layers of Earth

Help students picture what lies beneath their feet with this one-page worksheet on the layers of Earth! Students read a short passage, study a large cutaway diagram, and label each layer.

The passage compares Earth to a peach and walks through its four layers from the outside in. The crust is the thin, rocky outer layer we live on, only about 5 to 70 kilometers thick. The mantle is the thickest layer, about 2,900 kilometers thick, made of hot rock that flows very slowly, like soft putty. The outer core is a layer of liquid iron and nickel. The inner core is a ball of iron and nickel that is about as hot as the surface of the Sun, yet it stays solid because of the great pressure from the layers above. A wide half-Earth cutaway at the top of the page shows the four layers with lettered labels. In the first activity, students use a word bank to name the layer at each letter, A to D. In the second activity, students complete four sentences with the words thinnest, thickest, liquid, and solid. The sheet is written to Texas TEKS 6.10B.

What's inside:

• A short passage with a large lettered cutaway of Earth
• 4 diagram labels with a word bank
• 4 fill in the blank sentences
• A visual answer key with the labeled diagram

How teachers use it:

• As an introduction to Earth's structure
• For bell work, stations, or an exit ticket
• As homework or sub plans, with no prep needed

It takes about 10 minutes and prints clearly in black and white. This worksheet is part of our Reading in Science series on Earth's systems.