Land and Water
Lesson 11
Hills and Rocks: How Nature Changes the Direction and Flow of Water
Students will use the stream table to investigate how land features affect the direction and flow of water. Students will compare their results with other groups.
3. Lesson set up and Management
INQB: Scientists plan and conduct different kinds of investigations, depending on the questions they are trying to answer.
INQD: Investigations involve systematic collection and recording of relevant observations and data.
INQF: A scientific model is a simplified representation of an object, event, system, or process created to understand some aspect of the natural world.
ES2C: Erosion is the movement of Earth materials by processes such as wind, water, ice, and gravity.
- Students will make land features in their stream table and see how the land features change the direction and flow of the water.
- Students will record their observations in their science notebooks.
- Students will compare their observations with the other groups in the room.
3. Lesson set up and Management
Materials:
- Colored water is not necessary.
- If drawing the aerial view: Make sure the clear plastic sheeting is cut large enough to cover the top of the tub and overlaps so the rubber band can secure the plastic to the tub.
- If drawing the aerial view: Check to make sure the markers are not dried up.
- Consider taking a photograph of each stream table and supplying each student with a copy of the photo.
- Try to move the stream tables as little as possible.
- Make sure when students are bulldozing their earth material prior to making the hills, that there is some slope to the earth materials.
- Have students sprinkle just a little bit of the marine sand as the water is pouring into the stream table.
- Make sure the students bulldoze their steam table and prepare it for Lesson 12.
Student Management:
- Assign the students different tasks: Materials manager, bulldozer & land features, water pourer, and water bucket. Make sure that different students have the opportunity to do the different roles.
- On student sheet "Student Instructions for Testing the Direction and Flow of Water on Land," step 3; have the student answer the following investigative question, "What is the affect of rocks and hills (land features) on the direction of the water?" When students write their prediction they should include the land feature (changed variable) and change in the water's direction (measured variable).
- Remind students that the changes in their stream table model may represent a process that takes millions of years on the Earth.
Stream table before adding the water.
Stream table after the water, notice the marine sand.
Writing Support:
- Have the students make a labeled diagram of their stream table and record observations of the speed of the water and the different earth materials. Consider using the flags made in Lesson 7.
- Record in their journals any differences in how the water flowed in their stream table compared to the water flow in another group's stream table.
Math Support:
- See Mathematics connections 2 in the Teacher’s Guide. Have the students measure the length of the longest stream in the stream table as it meanders and also measure in linear distance. Have all the groups record their information on a class data table. Have the students find the class mean, median, mode and range for both meandering and linear distance. Have the students measure distance to the millimeter and convert into centimeters to practice using decimals.
Stream length (cm)
Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Mean
Median
Mode
Range
Meandering Distance
Linear Distance