Up close and personal with erosion

Since we switch students for science, I get to teach the FOSS Land forms kit four times.  Since this kit is my favorite, it works out nicely :)

(Coincidently, all four of us got our favorite kit to teach! I think it definitely benefits the students when we're excited about what we're teaching)

We've learned about maps (physical, political & topographic) as well as land forms and globes, so it was time to investigate.

We were looking at how a stream table changes an environment.

My students got up close and personal with the process of erosion:

I use the pictures of their actual investigations in my power point and we then talk about how the canyon was formed, deposition and alluvial fans.

Next we see what happens when we add a slight elevation:

The result is the alluvial fans tend to be larger and the earth material is more widely displaced within the table (deposition).

Next week we'll try it with floods :)

Of course, they have to record in their science notebooks and make a hypothesis:

I love how excited they get about sand, clay and water!