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Students will be able to define erosion and explain its role in shaping the Earth's surface.

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Students will identify and describe the main agents of erosion: water, wind, ice, and gravity.

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Students will explain how erosion affects landscapes and ecosystems over time.

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How does erosion shape our world, and why is it important to understand?

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Teacher presents a brief overview of erosion using visual aids and real-world examples.

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Weathering and Erosion: Crash Course Kids #10.2

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In small groups, students conduct a simple experiment using sand, water, and a fan to simulate different types of erosion.

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The Good and the Beautiful Homeschool Science

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Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition Experiment | Geology | The Good and the Beautiful

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Class discussion on the positive and negative impacts of erosion on landscapes and human activities.

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Short quiz on identifying erosion agents and their effects with multiple choice and essay questions

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Students analyze a given landscape scenario and explain how erosion might change it over time (summative assessment).

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Students share 3 things they learned, 2 things they found interesting, and 1 question they still have about erosion.

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Exit ticket: Students describe one example of erosion.

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Create a poster illustrating ways showing erosion in a specific setting (beach, farmland, etc.) and how erosion could be prevented in the area chosen.

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Play an online erosion simulation game and write a short reflection on what they learned.

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In this series of games, your students will learn about the process of erosion, how it alters the planet, and why it is so powerful. The Weathering and Erosion learning objective - based on NGSS and state standards - delivers improved student engagement and academic performance in your classroom, as demonstrated by research.

Scroll down for a preview of this learning objective's games and the concepts they drive home.

Concepts Covered

Aside from plate tectonics, moving water (including ice) causes the most significant change to the earth's surface. Water moves because of wind, which creates waves. Gravity also moves water, and makes it flow downward. The more water there is and the faster it moves, the more powerful its erosive impact.

Rainwater and runoff, streams and rivers (above and below ground), ice sheets and glaciers, and oceans are just some of the different forms of moving water. All of them affect the solid surface of the earth, over the course of minutes and months, or millions of years.

Weathering is the process of breaking down rock that is not moving. Physical weathering happens when water gets into cracks in the rock and freezes, expanding and breaking the rock. Chemical weathering takes place when water reacts with minerals in the rock to form new minerals and dissolve others.

Erosion is when water actually transports rock and sediment from one place to another. This happens when rainwater washes downhill, and when rivers and streams flow toward the ocean. Underground streams can dissolve rock and create caves, and ocean waves can make coastal cliffs collapse. Mass wasting, like landslides and mudslides, causes sediment to move downhill, and water makes it move faster. And in tsunami erosion, huge floods move lots of sediments and even buildings!

When flowing water slows down, the sediments settle in a new place in a process called deposition. Chemical deposition can occur when the pressure or acidity of the water changes, or the temperature goes up and causes it to evaporate.

All this moving of sediments causes significant changes to the landscape. Erosion can enlarge riverbeds and stream beds, eventually carving out canyons and valleys. It can alter mountains and create cave features, as well as changing beaches and coastal cliffs. Glaciers leave behind valleys and moraines.

A preview of each game in the learning objective is found below.

You can access all of the games on Legends of Learning for free, forever, with a teacher account. A free teacher account also allows you to create playlists of games and assignments for students and track class progress. Sign up for free today!

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Weathering and Erosion Science Games | Legends of Learning

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In this series of games, your students will learn about the process of erosion, how it alters the planet, and why it is so powerful. The Weathering and Erosion learning objective - based on NGSS and state standards - delivers improved student engagement and academic performance in your classroom, as demonstrated by research.

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1) Generate and support a claim with evidence that over long periods of time, erosion (weathering and transportation) and deposition have changed landscapes and created new landforms.