Weathering & Erosion

So the NYS Curriculum kind of confused me for a few months, more than it should have.  I wanted to teach conceptually using the Key Ideas, but then things overlapped, so I only spent a bit of time on weathering/erosion.  But, I will have to revisit it later in the year.  It's not terrible to spiral like that so I think it's okay, but these are only a few of the ideas I had from the "Round One" of erosion/weathering.


Weathering Walk:  We walked around the school campus and recorded examples of weathering and identified them as either physical or chemical.

Wind Erosion Lego Lab:  We basically constructed cities out of Legos (and clay...next time I would omit the clay and maybe use a smaller bit of Play-Dough due to the mess clay made) on trays.  We filled it with sand, and then tipped the trays (propped up with a stack of books).  We put the trays under boxes with small holes punched in.  In the holes on one side we put straws and the kids "blew" their cities.  They then had to record what happened.  I had one very creative student who made a reservoir to catch all the sand.  Basically, we talked about where it goes, how it impacts it, etc.  The original idea was to use a fan, but it didn't work AT ALL.  So, I had to modify.  The kids loved the project and it was good to see how they worked as a team.  Here is some of the data the kids recorded:

The final activity I will share is the post-assessment of their knowledge. I gave students a snowglobe template and they needed to create a scene which showed both chemical and physical weathering.  They listed them on a following page:

Enjoy! :)