Classroom News: "Flooding the Model"

During our Library/Technology and Discovery times, we have been working on our "Flooding the Model" project that incorporates important ideas about geography and earth science.  We started this project with a clay model.  We discussed various types of landforms and students created labels for the landforms on our model.  These landforms include: mountains, canyons, valleys, and craters.  Then, students colored and labeled their first maps of the model.

Next, we added water to "flood" our model.  Students watched how our landforms changed and recorded these changes on a new map that showed bodies of water and land.  We continued to add more water over the next few lessons.  Students added a new blue color to their second maps to show the changing coastlines and areas of water and land.  We also discussed additional vocabulary words for the landforms and bodies of water that we noticed, such as lake, river, ocean, and peninsula.

One of our mentor texts for this project was Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea: Marie Tharp Maps the Ocean Floor, which tells the story of a woman who showed perseverance by proving that women can be scientists and by figuring out a way to create a map of the ocean floor.  We made many connections to our model project during our discussions.  One big idea that we discussed was how there is land underneath the ocean's surface.  This lead to a deeper discussion about the earth's crust, plate tectonics, and Pangaea (the supercontinent that existed long ago when today's continents were joined together).

 

We continued to add more water to our model, which changed the landforms and bodies of water.  Our new maps looked very different from our first two maps.  Students also continued to rename the places on our map based on our changing model, including new islands and bays.

 

Next, I read aloud the book, Island: A Story of the Galapagos.  This book describes how one of the Galapagos islands was formed and how it changed over time.  In addition, we learned about how different species of animals adapted over a long period of time to help them survive changes in their environment.  This discussion made an important connection between this current geography/earth science unit and our upcoming study of animals and adaptations.

Finally, students wrapped up the unit by writing about changes that they noticed in our model over time.  We also continued to add to our vocabulary posters to include words such as strait and archipelago.

A big thank you to Ms. Arlyn who co-taught this unit with me!