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The lithosphere of the earth is divided into a small number of plates which float on and travel independently over the mantle and much of the earth's seismic activity occurs at the boundaries of these plates. In other words it is stating that the earth is like one large jigsaw puzzle that keeps moving apart.

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Plate tectonic theory had its beginnings in 1915 when Alfred Wegener proposed his theory of "continental drift." Wegener proposed that the continents plowed through crust of ocean basins, which would explain why the outlines of many coastlines (like South America and Africa) look like they fit together like a puzzle.

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What Plate Tectonics Has Done  to Our Earth/ How it Works 

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What Plate Tectonics Has Done  to Our Earth/ How it Works 

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These plates are watched by satellites that are in space which tell us that the plates move as little as 2.5 cm/year. Another way plate tectonics has shaped our earth is by earthquakes.

What Plate Tectonics has done to our Earth:

Earthquakes happen when the tectonics get locked together when moving. As the plates try to move, it causes friction. Eventually, the stored energy is released causing an earthquake.This can be called "Transform"

Another natural disaster plate tectonics cause are Volcanoes. when plates are pushed together or pulled apart, volcanoes are created, which is why they tend to occur in the same place as earthquakes. When tectonic plates spread apart from each other, hot magma rises up and fills the space between.

Plate tectonics can cause Mountains to form when they collide in a specific way which is called "Uplift". Uplift is when 2 Plates move towards each other, they are both crumpled forming a mountain such as the Himalayas.

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Plate Tectonics for Kids - from www.makemegenius.com

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The link below with offer pictures as well as important facts about plate tectonics.

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There are a few handfuls of major plates and dozens of smaller, or minor, plates. Six of the majors are named for the continents embedded within them, such as the North American, African, and Antarctic plates. Though smaller in size, the minors are no less important when it comes to shaping the Earth. The tiny Juan de Fuca plate is largely responsible for the volcanoes that dot the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

The plates make up Earth's outer shell, called the lithosphere. (This includes the crust and uppermost part of the mantle.) Churning currents in the molten rocks below propel them along like a jumble of conveyor belts in disrepair. Most geologic activity stems from the interplay where the plates meet or divide.

The movement of the plates creates three types of tectonic boundaries: convergent, where plates move into one another; divergent, where plates move apart; and transform, where plates move sideways in relation to each other.

They move at a rate of one to two inches (three to five centimeters) per year.

Convergent Boundaries

Where plates serving landmasses collide, the crust crumples and buckles into mountain ranges. India and Asia crashed about 55 million years ago, slowly giving rise to the Himalaya, the highest mountain system on Earth. As the mash-up continues, the mountains get higher. Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth, may be a tiny bit taller tomorrow than it is today.

These convergent boundaries also occur where a plate of ocean dives, in a process called subduction, under a landmass. As the overlying plate lifts up, it also forms mountain ranges. In addition, the diving plate melts and is often spewed out in volcanic eruptions such as those that formed some of the mountains in the Andes of South America.

At ocean-ocean convergences, one plate usually dives beneath the other, forming deep trenches like the Mariana Trench in the North Pacific Ocean, the deepest point on Earth. These types of collisions can also lead to underwater volcanoes that eventually build up into island arcs like Japan.

At divergent boundaries in the oceans, magma from deep in the Earth's mantle rises toward the surface and pushes apart two or more plates. Mountains and volcanoes rise along the seam. The process renews the ocean floor and widens the giant basins. A single mid-ocean ridge system connects the world's oceans, making the ridge the longest mountain range in the world.

On land, giant troughs such as the Great Rift Valley in Africa form where plates are tugged apart. If the plates there continue to diverge, millions of years from now eastern Africa will split from the continent to form a new landmass. A mid-ocean ridge would then mark the boundary between the plates.

The San Andreas Fault in California is an example of a transform boundary, where two plates grind past each other along what are called strike-slip faults. These boundaries don't produce spectacular features like mountains or oceans, but the halting motion often triggers large earthquakes, such as the 1906 one that devastated San Francisco.

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There are a few handfuls of major plates and dozens of smaller, or minor, plates. Six of the majors are named for the continents embedded within them, such as the North American, African, and Antarctic plates. Though smaller in size, the minors are no less important when it comes to shaping the Earth.

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Large convection currents in the aesthenosphere transfer heat to the surface, where plumes of less dense magma break apart the plates at the spreading centers, creating divergent plate boundaries.

As the plates move away from the spreading centers, they cool, and the higher density basalt rocks that make up ocean crust get consumed at the ocean trenches/subduction zones. The crust is recycled back into the aesthenosphere.
What are the conventional currents in the Earth?
Convection currents in the magma drive plate tectonics. Heat generated from the radioactive decay of elements deep in the interior of the Earth creates magma (molten rock) in the aesthenosphere. The aesthenosphere (70 ~ 250 km) is part of the mantle, the middle sphere of the Earth that extends to 2900 km.

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Area the Ring of Fire covers

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What is the Ring of Fire?
The Ring of Fire is a major area in the basin of the Pacific Ocean where 90% of the earths earthquakes occur and a large amount of  volcanic eruptions occur.

How did this Ring form?
Tectonic plates are massive slabs of the Earth's crust. These move constantly above the mantle -- a layer of solid and molten rock below the Earth's crust.

The Ring of Fire was formed as oceanic plates slid under continental plates.Volcanoes along the Ring of Fire are formed when one plate is shoved under another into the mantle -- a solid body of rock between the Earth's crust and the molten iron core -- through a process called subduction.

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The 40,000-kilometer (25,000-mile) area stretches from the boundary of the Pacific Plate and the smaller plates such as the Philippine Sea plate to the Cocos and Nazca Plates that line the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

About 80% of all earthquakes strike in the Ring of Fire, according to Hongfeng Yang, a seismologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

People are most at risk in Chile, Japan, the US west coast, and other island nations including the Solomon Islands to the western seaboard of North and South Americas.

They are at risk because they lie on subduction zones that are locked so tectonic energy must be released by large earthquakes.

How did the Ring of Fire form?

Tectonic plates are massive slabs of the Earth's crust. These move constantly above the mantle -- a layer of solid and molten rock below the Earth's crust.

The Ring of Fire was formed as oceanic plates slid under continental plates.

Volcanoes along the Ring of Fire are formed when one plate is shoved under another into the mantle -- a solid body of rock between the Earth's crust and the molten iron core -- through a process called subduction.

Large earthquakes -- which risk triggering tsunamis -- also occur in subduction zones.

How are earthquakes triggered?

Earthquakes represent the energy release from the interior of the Earth, where huge amount of heat is stored.

The heat drives the plates to move. When two plates move against one another and produce friction, it causes energy to build up. When the energy is released it triggers an earthquake.

"It takes tens of thousands of years for the energy to build up, but only a matter of seconds for it to be released," said Hongfeng Yang, a seismologists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Tectonic plates usually move an average of a few centimeters each year, but when an earthquake strikes, they can move several meters per second.

Can earthquakes be predicted along the Ring of Fire?

As with Friday's earthquake off the west coast of Mexico, seismologists can't yet predict when or where earthquakes will strike, or how large they will be.

Some researchers argue that there are certain conditions -- such as hydraulic fracturing when we drill deep into the sea to extract energy resources -- induce earthquakes. But there's no hard scientific evidence to back this up.

Correction: A previous version of a map above incorrectly identified the location of the Ring of Fire. It has been corrected.

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The 40,000-kilometer (25,000-mile) area stretches from the boundary of the Pacific Plate and the smaller plates such as the Philippine Sea plate to the Cocos and Nazca Plates that line the edge of the Pacific Ocean. About 80% of all earthquakes strike in the Ring of Fire, according to Hongfeng Yang, a seismologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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Who is this man? Well, John Tuzo Wilson was a Canadian geophysicist and geologist. He became known for his contribution to the theory of plate tectonics. Why is he important to the understanding of plate tectonics? John was responsible for creating the first glacial map of Canada. The biggest thing he was internationally respected for was his explanation on plate tectonics. Part of his theory was the notion that the earth's crust is made up of a series of floating plates.