Roll over this image with your mouse or cursor to see the what is hidden. These are called "cutaways."

Block diagram with detail

This block diagram of a desert (in south-west USA or Mexico) shows a piece of the desert as if it had been sliced like a cake and placed before us.

Why use block diagrams in the classroom?

• To show a typical "piece" of the subject in a way that allows us to look around it and underneath its surface.
• Block diagrams are especially useful in showing features of
  • different habitats and environments
  • volcanoes, canyons, river valleys, glaciers, earthquake faults
  • tiny parts of plants, animals, cells, the human body, and so on

Why use detail diagrams in the classroom?

• To show an important but small detail (such as what your skin looks like under a powerful microscope).
• To show how a small detail works while keeping it in the context of the larger diagram, of which it is a part.

Other diagrams to compare with this one:

• Diagram with labels (picture glossary)
• Cutaway diagram
• Other block diagrams:
  • a piece of your skin
  • a piece of Mars

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Copyright © Black Cockatoo Publishing PL 2004

A block diagram shows a "piece" of the subject as if it had been cut like a slice of cake and placed on a plate.

Key features

• Block: an arrangement of the subject as a 3D shape as if cut out with a knife

• Numbers: to name parts of the diagram.

• Detail: to show a part enlarged, in order to see very small but important details.

• Cutaways: to reveal "hidden" information