Erosion Stations
Station #1-Wave erosion
1. To demonstrate beach erosion, take a pan, make a sand pile at one end and pour water at the other end. Slide the pan back and forth to create wave movement. Record your observation here. Draw what you saw.
2. What is doing the eroding? the waves
3. What is the result of this erosion?A sand bar forms in the water and the beach changes.
Station #2-Glacier/ice erosion
1. Take an ice cube with sand and gravel frozen in it. Move it over the playdoh. How did it weather the playdoh?
Made scratches and cleared a path
2.How is this like a glacier in nature?
Glaciers scratch the surface of the earth
3. Move it over the different surfaces: sand,dirt. Record your observations.
It picks up sand and dirt and makes a path
4. What is doing the eroding? The glacier
Station #3-Wind erosion
1. Watch the video clip on the board. Record your observations. Draw what was created. (sand dune)
2. How does erosion occur?Wind picks up the sand and drops it when it hits the rock.
3. What is the result of this type of erosion?Sand dunes
Station #4-River erosion
1. Get the old Science book. Turn to page 255. Answer the following questions:
2. What do rivers create through erosion? (5 things)
Valleys, waterfalls, flood plains, meanders and oxbow lakes
3. Describe how a river creates a valley.
Rivers that form on steep mountain slopes flow quickly and erode the steep slopes rapidly, forming a v-shaped valley.
4. Describe how a river creates a water fall. Draw the picture in Fig. 9. Label it.
Waterfalls occur where a river meets an area of rock that is very hard and erodes slowly. The river flows over this rock and then flows over softer rock downstream, eventually wearing it away, causing a water fall.
5. What is a flood plain? The flat, wide area of land along a river
6. How do rivers meander?A river often develops meanders where it flows thru easily eroded rock or sediment. A meander is a looplike bend in the river. As the river widens from side to side, it tends to erodethe outer bank and deposit sediment on the inner bank of a bend.
7. Draw a picture of a meandering river. Highlight, in 2 different colors, the side where the river erodes and where the river deposits. Label these.
7. How does an oxbow lake form? Draw one.(see above)
An ox bow is a meander that has been cut off from the river.
8. What kind of landforms does a river create when it deposits its load? Describe and draw each one here: Alluvial fans and deltas
Station #5-Water erosion
1. Watch the demonstration at the front of the room. Answer the following questions:
2. What is happening to the mountain?
It is being weathered and eroded
3. What is forming at the foot of the mountain? Draw it.
Alluvial fan
4. Is this erosion or deposition or both? Explain.
Both. The mountain is being eroded and the alluvial fan is being deposited.
5. How do you think the speed of the water falling would affect what happened? The faster it falls the more the mountain gets eroded.