Beakman uses a chocolate-covered cherry as a demo of what the layers of the earth look like. He then demonstrates the earth plates by showing a ball with plastic plates glued on it to explain plate techtonics. He creates a simulation of two tectonic plates sliding past each other. He uses two planks side by side connected with sticky paper on top and has bobble heads on each to capture the movement (like a seismograph). They push the plates in opposite directions to demonstrate how an earthquake occurs.
Bill Nye explains why it gets colder as one travels up through the atmosphere. He uses miniature replicas of a city and a mountain to support his explanation. Bill also briefly touches upon the lapse rate.
Phil walks us through the different layers of the atmosphere. He explains what we can expect to find at each layer and the concentration of air molecules at each level.