Friday, September 21, 2007

Show and Tell - The Glacier in our backyard

I've been meaning to upload and share these pictures of our attempt at making a mini-glacier.  It's been a whole week since we did that, and since it's also Show & Tell day, I will make the most of it.  (Show & Tell is hosted by Mary aka CanadaGirl - check out her blog for the other entries and to participate)

We talked about glaciers last week in Science, and tried making our own "mini-glacier" so that we could observe how the movement of the ice can carve and change a landscape.  The glacier is just some small rocks and sand in the bottom of a juice carton, to which we added water and then put in the freezer.  The next day we pulled off the cardboard and had a little "glacier" to play with.





We first took our glacier to a small slope beside the house, but there was too much mulch and grass and not enough dirt to make it work the way we needed.





So later in the day, on our way to gym class, we stopped by the dirt bike track at the greenhouse, and found the PERFECT spot on one of the ramps!







In order to get an idea of how the slowly moving ice in a glacier changes a landscape, we pushed/slid/scraped our glacier down the slope while also pushing it into the dirt itself.  (This worked very well until we discovered that our chosen ramp was also home to a large anthill.  Then we had to beat a hasty retreat!)





In these last two pictures, you may be able to see  the little pile of rocks that built up near the leading edge of our glacier.  That is called the "terminal moraine"  The rocks pushed up alongside the glacier are called the "lateral moraine"  Once we took the glacier off the slope, we were able to see (and maybe you can see in the picture) some lines scraped out in the dirt.  The rocks and debris picked up by a glacier as it moves act like sandpaper on the underside of the glacier and scratches these lines into the ground.  They are called "striations"

This is Moraine Lake near Banff, Alberta.  Guess how it was formed?



Hope you enjoyed our somewhat scholarly Show & Tell today!  Now I need to leave for gym class!

15 comments:

Canadagirl said...

Thank you !!! This was a GREAT S&T ! I will book mark this one for future use. I think it is next year we cover this. [0= I always enjoy your S&T's. [0= I am hopping my canning slows down so I can visit MORE than I have. ((hugs))


God Bless my SSiC

In Him<><

-Mary

jenn4him said...

Very interesting!

Jenn

SuzyScribbles said...

That is a very clever science experiment. Don't know why I never came across an experiment like that. We did erosion with mud and water, but never made a glacier. Very cool! I like the pictures. I did tons of science stuff with my kids and their friends. Even to this day, one of the little girls (she's 20 now) still remembers dissecting the cow heart and the pig's eye. I must have been nuts. It was pretty gory, but the kids love it. We even typed blood--yep--lances and all. Shudder.

Prncsstefy said...

How cool Kym!!

bubbebobbie said...

What a wonderful experiment. The smiles on your children's faces says it all...They love learning.


Because of Jesus, Bobbie

socalval said...

Now, that's homeschooling fun! Great show and tell. Thanks for sharing it with us. Have a great Friday.


Valerie

solodeogloria said...

...and educational too!! This is a lesson that will be remembered for a long time. Cool! (literally)


Blessings,

Laurie

bethanyrae said...

How cool and what a lot of fun. My hubby is a geologist, so is always pointing out those kinds of formations to us. Michigan was under glaciers once, so there's a lot to tell, I guess.

Thanks for the pictures.

bethanyrae

MyChildrenAndMe said...

What a wonderful S&T today. I'm sure the kids had a lot of funny doing the project. This was a really awesome S&T.


Blessings,

Debbie

PeakmoreAcademy said...

Oh that was a wonderful S&T! Very cool. What a clever little hands-on demonstration to have done!


thanks for sharing and have a great weekend!

curiouscat said...

That was very educational, thanks for sharing :) We used to live up in the "land-o-lakes" area where they say all the lakes and sloughs were made from glaciers. Neat!


here's mine:

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/curiouscat/394844/

Denise

aka HeartnSoul

Haflingerhorses said...

Thanks for sharing this science project that you did with your kids. What a great show and tell. I wish I did stuff like this!

Antoinette

bakerswife said...

Very well done! How creative!!! I absolutely loved your S&T. Your children are blessed to have you as their teacher.

Blessings, Mama K

CrossView said...

We may have to ummmm....

*coughcoughborrowitcoughcough*.

Thanks for sharing! =D

drewsfamilytx said...

What a fun idea! I'll have to remember that when we take the kids to Banff next year. It is SO beautiful up there!


Have a great week!

Marsha

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