Shake me up Year Five!

Year Five have been busy in class learning all about Changing Landforms.  They've found out about tectonic plates, layers in the earth and all the different ways that our land is formed.  As part of their unit I was asked to come up with an activity to help reinforce some of their new learning.

We decided to focus on weathering and erosion and after learning about that, the boys got into groups and made a model of our school grounds - the bank at the back and the gentle slope down to the beach.  We built the surface up with firstly rock and dirt which we packed down to represent the hard surface.  We then covered the surface with sand to represent the top layer of soil.  Each group then got to model the effects of rain and wind - using sprinkled water and hairdryers!

We carefully observed the effects of both and it was great to see the boys beginning to make some really good observations of the channels the water carved through the sand, how the sand was carried and blown further than the rock, how the sand usually ended up being blown into the same places and how the higher areas began to shrink in height.
After we made our observations and applied our thinking to the everyday world, we were ready for another experiment.  This time the boys added shapes to their models to represent buildings, forests and roadways.  This time they were asked to observe and look for any differences that the man made structures made on the surface of our models.

Using models, the boys got to investigate the effects of wind and rain.  Through observation they were able to come up with some really excellent ideas about erosion and what we need to do to help slow down its effects.  Well done Year Five!