beaches and weathering

2/6/2023

Manna Moment

Lamentations 3:23-24 states that God’s compassions never fail and that His mercies are new to us every morning. What we will learn about Beaches today is that beaches are an ever-changing ecosystem. From day to day, they are changed in some way. If you go out to the beach one day at the same time as the next, you are guaranteed that there will be more seashells, different sand structures etc. as a result of the tides and waves. When I think of the waves that continually pound the shore, they are constant and consistent like God’s unfailing love for us. Each day, His mercies are new for our life, so just like the beach is new every morning, in the same way, God’s mercies to us are new every morning, Great is His Faithfulness.

Weathering, Erosion and Deposition

I used this handout to guide the students through the process of weathering, erosion and deposition. I drew this simple diagram on the board so the students could follow along. On the mountain, I placed rocks breaking apart and labeled it 'weathering'. I drew more rocks falling into the river and labeled that erosion, the carrying of rock or sediment from one place to another. Finally, I drew rocks on the bottom of the ocean to represent deposition and where the rocks were deposited after being broken and carried away.

candy Weathering Experiment

After establishing what weathering, erosion and deposition were, they were equipped with the background research they needed for their Candy Weathering Experiment. This is set up in the format of the scientific method. They were able to hypothesize if moving water would weather candy more or less than candy sitting in still water. After the students made their hypothesis, we filled the jars half full of water and placed 2 pieces of each type of candy in each jar. We put the lid on and let them sit while we enjoyed our book at the 'beach'.

Beachcombing by jim Arnosky with notes

I went box by box on the note taking sheet and found the respective page in the Arnosky book. I love hearing about all the students experiences with beachcombing on their own.

We reviewed the five oceans on the inflatable globe.

A beach is anywhere that the ocean meets the land. I showed them this inflatable globe and showed them all the places where beaches could be, either rocky or sandy.

Can you hear the ocean in this shell?

Return to Candy Weathering

So when we returned from the beach, we checking on our candy sitting in the jar and made our observations on our sheet.

Time to shake the jars.

After the shake.

Homework highlights

I had requested last week that the students color these coral reefs beautiful colors AND they did! What beautiful coral reefs and wonderful reviews of what they learned about the flora, fauna, and symbiosis from last week in the coral reef.