Seeing Glaciers Move

With simple items and some preparation students can learn first-hand how glaciers shape the surface of the Earth. As the author points out it is somewhat messy but students can use their in... See More

With simple items and some preparation students can learn first-hand how glaciers shape the surface of the Earth. As the author points out it is somewhat messy but students can use their inquiry skills to design an investigation to test how glaciers can change the shape of the Earth’s surface. The article provides all the information needed to reproduce this activity. This activity provides students the opportunity to actually see what might happen in the real world over thousands of years. This is a great activity.

Simplistic explanation

The author presents an interesting approach to having student understand how glaciers abrade and move debris for extended distances. By creating mini "glaciers" students can develop their ow... See More

The author presents an interesting approach to having student understand how glaciers abrade and move debris for extended distances. By creating mini "glaciers" students can develop their own experiments to observe the different processes at work. There are several good things about this article. It starts with a consistent set of equipment, and using controls, students can make measurements and analyze data. But glaciers inherently carry large volumes of poorly sorted debris; the activity uses aquarium gravel, limiting the understanding to sorted debris. It might be more effective to use a variety of debris sizes, as well as developing a better model for how glaciers carve out U-shaped valleys in alpine areas, and flatten terrain in continental glaciers. Also, the activity could be extended to show the formation of landforms by the glaciers, including moraines, eskers, drumlins, outwash, etc.