How Rivers Flow

Lab Brief #5

🎯 Your mission

Run the experiment. Find out what really happens.

⚡ The twist

Today's mountain was yesterday's ocean floor.

What you'll learn

Rivers flow from high places to low places, carrying water, sand, and tiny rocks along the way.

Key words

rock
A hard, solid piece of the Earth made of minerals.
river
A large natural stream of water that flows across the land.

Make a hypothesis first

Guess: where will the water go first?

Say your guess out loud — then find out if you were right.

Get ready

🧰 What you need

rocks
sand
water

⚠️ Safety first

Mop up spills straight away so nobody slips, and keep liquids away from sockets.

Step 1 of 4 · Read

Look at the new words. Can you say each one?

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Pour water on a pile of sand and a pile of rocks. Watch how the water flows differently.

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Watch carefully. What happens?

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Draw and write about what you learned.

Question 1 of 3

Rivers flow from:

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 2 of 3

What can a river carry along?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 3 of 3

Where do many rivers end?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Mind = blown

🪨 Every grain of sand on every beach used to be a mountain.

Nice work!

You got 0 of 3 right.

Next: Water for Life All lessons

🎯

Next Smart Experiment

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✨ More to explore

🌍 Where you see this in real life: Today's weather, tomorrow's beach, next century's coastline — all this.

🏆 Stretch challenge (try it this week): Look at the sky for 5 minutes and try to predict tomorrow's weather.

👨‍👩‍👧 For the dinner table: “What's the slowest change you can think of?”

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How Rivers Flow

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