Lesson Plans
Create Your Own Glaciers
Objectives
Students will create a glacier and write about its effects.
The student will
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create a glacier using water and stones.
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pass the "glacier" over a piece of wood and record the shape of the scrapings.
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explain how scrapings and deposits made by glaciers could provide clues to the climate.
Procedure
- Review with the students what they have learned about glaciers -- how and why they move.
- Ask students how they think scientists can tell if glaciers have moved over the land. Explain that rocks and gravel freeze. The weight of the glacier causes its bottom to be "plastic-like"; gravity pushes it down ridges and crevasses. What would happen to the land over which a glacier travels? What evidence would a glacier leave behind?
- Tell the students they're going to make a glacier. Divide the class into partners or groups of three.
- Fill a paper cup with sharp pieces of gravel.
- Cover the gravel with about an inch of water.
- Tape plastic wrap tight over the top of the cup.
- Flip the cup onto a paper plate, so that the plastic wrap is next to the plate.
- Freeze overnight.
- When the glaciers are frozen solid, have students peel off the plastic wrap and scrape them, gravel end down, over a smooth piece of wood to simulate the action of a glacier. Be sure to only scrape in one direction, because glaciers move in only one direction.
- Have students observe the patterns the gravel has made on the wood. How would this compare to patterns made on the land by real glaciers?
- Have students sketch their patterns and write a paragraph explaining what they can infer about the way real glaciers affect the landforms over which they move.
- Discuss how patterns of glaciations provide clues to the climate in a particular area over time. For example, if evidence of glacial scraping is found in an area that is too warm for glaciers to exist, what can we infer about how the climate in that area has changed over a long period of time?
Material
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Plastic or paper cup
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Sharp pieces of gravel
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Water
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Plastic wrap
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Tape
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Paper plate
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Smooth piece of wood
Evaluation
3 points -- sketches carefully and accurately drawn; paragraphs clear, complete and error-free
2 points -- sketches adequate; paragraphs sufficiently clear, but with some errors
1 point -- sketches adequate; paragraphs lacking in clarity with numerous errors
Adapted from a lesson by Frank Weisel, Earth Science Teacher, Tilden Middle School, Rockport, Maryland.
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