Explaining Glaciers Accurately

This article is an excellent resource for providing teachers with information and tools to help students learn about glaciers and their affect on the earth. After completing the activities ... See More

This article is an excellent resource for providing teachers with information and tools to help students learn about glaciers and their affect on the earth. After completing the activities in this lesson, students should be able to explain the processes of glacial plucking and abrasion and describe how they change the shape of the Earth’s surface. One of the great things about this resource is that it not only provides information about the topic but also includes ideas to introduce the topic, to include discovery questions to benchmark the student’s beginning level of understanding. The authors anticipate the potential needs of the teacher and outlines the general flow of the lesson, which includes glacier basics, the two mechanisms by which glaciers erode the earth, and hi-lights several activities and visual aids to bring clarity to the instruction. Overall, this is a great resource to aid in putting a lesson plan together.

Moving Stuff with Glaciers

Faw, a geologist, and Scott and Tate, fourth-grade teachers, created a lesson that would allow students to discover how glaciers change Earth's landscape. Most people think that glaciers mov... See More

Faw, a geologist, and Scott and Tate, fourth-grade teachers, created a lesson that would allow students to discover how glaciers change Earth's landscape. Most people think that glaciers move rocks like a bulldozer would. That, we learn, is not true. Glaciers move rock by plucking and abrasion. The lessons use potting soil, rocks of various kinds, water, and ice frozen overnight to help students see the action of a glacier, instead of imagining it. This lesson would not be difficult to do, and students would be engaged by the hands-on nature of it.