20386_Science_with_STEM_Year_4_Earth_and_Space_Sciences_Surface_changes

Earth and space sciences
SURFACE CHANGES
STEM project
STEM project:
Teacher notes
Students create a landform scene and film a video showing how the landforms weather away and
erode with water.
Estimated duration: 3–4 weeks
1. Introduce the project
• Play the video at to engage students and imagine
they are junior geologists.
• Display page 108 and read through,
clarifying anything that students don’t
understand.
2. Investigate
• Students revise what weathering and
erosion are and how they work to change
landforms.
• Students view a video at or scan the QR code on
page 109, showing erosion in action in a
time-lapse video. This will give them the
idea of how their gelatine/sand molds will
look when warm water is poured on them to
dissolve away and ‘weather’ and ‘erode’.
• Allow students time to explore iMovie ®
or another video recorder, to familiarise
themselves with how it works and to
understand how to add voice overs, sound
effects, music or insert a file like a data table.
3. Design, plan and manage
• Students draw a plan of their scene and
the four landforms they will include. They 5. Evaluate and refine
should also consider what molds or shapes
they will need to create their landforms.
• Students plan out what they will say during
their video to describe the effects of
weathering and erosion.
• Students consider and write a list of what
materials they will use to create their scene.
Ensure students use an appropriate tray or
clear container that can hold the water that
is poured onto the gelatine/sand landforms.
4. Create
• Ensure students have access to required
materials. These could include a large
plastic container or large aluminium tray,
gelatine, sand or soil, bowls, a whisk,
measuring cups, various molds or differentshaped
containers or materials to make
molds with, and access to warm water.
• Once students create their molds or select
the molds they want to use to represent
their four landforms, students create
the gelatine/sand mixture, pour it into
the molds and leave in the fridge to set
overnight.
• Once set, students flip the molds and create
their landscape scene, adding any other
features to their landscape such as trees.
• Ensure students measure their various
landforms and compile the data in a table
using Excel ® , PowerPoint ® or a similar
computer program.
• Students pour warm water over their
landforms, to act as rain, and film what
happens. They may want to create a pouring
instrument such as a polystyrene cup with
several holes in the bottom to act as rain.
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• Students may wish to change their
landforms or add more features to their
scene before pouring the water.
• Students may also find that the pouring may
not work well so can amend how they pour
the warm water and re-shoot the video.
6. Communicate
• Once students have created their final
video, they add their voice over explaining
how weathering and erosion change
landforms over time. They also add sound
effects or music, and insert the table of
measurements once they have remeasured
the ‘weathered’ and ‘eroded’ landforms.
R.I.C. Publications® – www.ricpublications.com.au YEAR Science:
4 A STEM APPROACH 107