Earth can change over seconds, hours or millions of years. Use a duration or sequence as evidence, not just a dramatic word. The same broad process can act at different rates: erosion may be slow overall but rapid during a flood. These cards are source summaries, not instructions to visit a hazard. Safety: No heat, shaking furniture, water erosion experiment, hazard visit or frightening media. Stop: Stop with the four cards. No earthquake reenactment, volcano mixture, cliff visit or disaster video is required.

Materials: Paper; Pencil; Ruler 1. Draw a table: source, change, time evidence, rapid or slow. Make four rows from the supplied cards. These cards paraphrase the sources. 2. Card A, USGS Mount St. Helens history: on 18 May 1980, a large landslide followed an earthquake within 15–20 seconds. Card B, the same USGS history: the eruption column rose more than 15 miles in about 15 minutes. Enter landslide and eruption as two rapid changes. 3. Card C, National Park Service Grand Canyon geology: the Colorado River has carved the canyon over about 5–6 million years. Card D, the same geology account: the Rio Grande Rift began forming about 30–35 million years ago and continues to widen slowly. Enter canyon erosion and rift widening as two slow changes. 4. Draw separate time strips: rapid, 0–20 minutes in 5-minute intervals; slow, 0–40 million years in 10-million-year intervals. Place B at 15 minutes and C near 5–6 million years. Label A under one minute. Mark D as a 30–35-million-year history, not a widening rate. 5. Write one comparison using evidence from USGS and NPS. Add a caution that rapid and slow are descriptions of these cases, not permanent labels for every eruption or erosion event. Done: Complete four evidence rows, both labelled time strips, and one two-source comparison. Proof: Keep the table and time strips. Note adult help reading durations or locating points on either scale. Stop: Stop with the four cards. No earthquake reenactment, volcano mixture, cliff visit or disaster video is required.