How Erosion Moves Earth

Lab Brief #5

🎯 Your mission

Set it up. Test it. Be amazed.

⚡ The twist

The slowest changes are the biggest ones.

What you'll learn

Erosion moves weathered rock and soil from one place to another by water, wind, ice, or gravity. Rivers carve valleys, wind shapes sand dunes, and glaciers grind mountains.

Key words

water cycle
The way water moves from clouds to rain to rivers and back.
weathering
When rocks slowly break apart from wind, water, and weather.
erosion
When wind or water slowly carries away rocks and soil.

Make a hypothesis first

Predict: which will erode faster?

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

Get ready

🧰 What you need

rocks
water
plastic tray

⚠️ Safety first

Wash your hands thoroughly afterwards and keep the material away from your face.
Mop up spills straight away so nobody slips, and keep liquids away from sockets.

Step 1 of 4 · Read

Look at the vocabulary words and write a definition for each in your own words.

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Model erosion: tilt a tray of soil and pour water from a cup at the top. Observe how channels form. Try adding plants or rocks to slow the erosion.

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Observe what happens and describe it in detail.

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Record your observations in your science journal with measurements and descriptions.

Question 1 of 3

What is erosion?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 2 of 3

What is a glacier?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 3 of 3

What causes wind?

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: How Fossils Form All lessons

🎯

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✨ More to explore

🌍 Where you see this in real life: This is shaping the ground you walk on, slowly, every single day.

🏆 Stretch challenge (try it this week): Find a rock outside and try to guess how old it is.

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

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How Erosion Moves Earth

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