3.1. Earth’s Interior – Learning Outcomes

After reading this chapter of the textbook, learning the vocabulary, and working through the review questions, students should be able to:

• Name and describe the layers of the Earth.
• Describe how elemental abundances change throughout the Earth’s layers.
• Describe how the Earth’s crust differs from the Earth’s lithosphere.
• Describe and draw the differences between P and S waves and how they move through the different layers of the Earth. 

Learning outcomes not covered in the textbook chapter in detail, but we may discuss them in class (depending on your professor):

• Describe the shape of the Earth.
• Describe how we describe elevations of features on the Earth’s surface.