WHAT ARE SOME OF EARTHS LANDFORMS What Do

WHAT ARE SOME OF EARTH’S LANDFORMS?

What Do You Already Know? • What is the land around your home like? • Is it wide and flat? • Does it have rolling hills or steep mountains?

What Are Landforms? • A natural land shape or feature is called a landform. • When you describe the landforms around your town, you are describing the area’s topography. Topography is all the kinds of landforms in a certain area.

Mountains, Hills, and Plains • Mountains are landforms that are much higher than the surrounding land. • Hills are like mountains, but not as high. • Plains are large, flat landforms.

Landforms From Ice • A glacier is a large, thick sheet of ice. • As they move, glaciers change the land around and beneath them.

Moraines and Glacial Grooves • Moraines are long, low hills formed by materials carried by a glacier. • Glacial Grooves are formed when a glacier scrapes and scratches the rock beneath it.

Landforms of Sand • A sand dune is a sand hill that is made and shaped by wind. • Barrier islands are long, narrow piles of sand that help protect the mainland from erosion.

Critical Thinking • What do you think might happen to a coastline if there were no barrier islands? • How are sand dunes and moraines alike and how are they different?

Landforms from Water • A mesa is a tall, flattopped rock feature that is formed as running water erodes the surrounding rock. Mesa is the Spanish word for table. • A canyon is a deep valley with steep sides that is created by water erosion.

Erosion & Deposition • Water, wind, and ice can carry small particles such as rocks and sand from one place to another. This movement of materials away from a place is called erosion. • Deposition is the process of laying down materials like soil and rocks that have been eroded from other places.

Review 1. How is the way a mesa forms similar to the way that a canyon forms? 2. What makes sand dunes and moraines similar? (Do NOT answer that they area both landforms) 3. Contrast mountains, hills, and plains. You can draw a sketch, but it must be labeled.

Hands-On Activity • You have four packs of play-dough at your table. Use three of the packs to create models of three different types of landforms. • Pick one of your land forms and use the fourth pack to show me what it would look like in 10, 000 years.