Classroom activity Grade 9 Art & Music
Cut-Paper Relief Map of the Esker Ridge Watershed: Grade 9 Activity
Grade 9 teams build a layered cut-paper relief map of a watershed, using value and a legend to show how ridgelines drain water to a town reservoir.
Objectives
- Students will build a layered relief map that shows elevation with stacked paper bands.
- Students will use value and a legend to map higher and lower ground clearly.
- Students will explain how ridgelines set a watershed boundary and direct water to an outlet.
Vocabulary
Key words: relief map, watershed boundary, ridgeline, elevation band, legend, value
Teacher overview
A watershed is the area of land that drains to a common outlet, and its shape is set by the ridgelines that separate one drainage from the next. That shape is hard to picture from a flat map, which is why a layered relief map, built from stacked paper elevation bands, makes it clear. In this activity, teams of two or three build a cut-paper relief map of a fictional watershed and then use their finished map to explain a geographic relationship: why the town and its reservoir sit where they do. The activity teaches cartographic value, where lighter and darker shades stand for lower and higher ground, alongside the science of how a watershed drains.
Activity Directions
- Setup (5 min): Form teams of two or three. Give each team three or four values of construction paper, scissors, glue, blue yarn or paper for streams, and the printed elevation sketch. Explain that a relief map shows height by stacking layers, with each layer standing for one elevation band.
- Read the land (8 min): Introduce the fictional Esker Ridge watershed, a bowl of high ground that drains to a reservoir beside the town of Moss Harbor. On the elevation sketch, teams trace the ridgeline that forms the watershed boundary and mark the low point where the streams meet the reservoir.
- Teach value and legend (8 min): Define relief map, ridgeline, elevation band, value, and legend. Decide as a class on a value order, such as the lightest paper for the lowest band and the darkest for the highest ridge, so the map reads consistently. Every team will include a legend showing that order.
- Cut and stack the layers (18 min): Teams cut each elevation band from its value of paper, working from the largest lowest layer up to the smallest highest layer, and glue them in a stack so the ridges rise toward the boundary. Encourage clean edges so each band reads clearly.
- Add water and labels (10 min): Teams lay blue streams that run downhill from the ridges and meet at the reservoir, then mark the town and add the legend and a label for the watershed boundary.
- Gallery and debrief (6 min): Post the maps. Each team uses its map to answer two questions aloud: how the ridgelines decide which rain reaches this reservoir, and why the town grew at the low outlet rather than up on the ridge. Close by naming one map that made the drainage easiest to read and why.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Differentiation
Support
Provide pre-cut elevation layers so students who find cutting difficult can focus on stacking, value order, and the legend. Give a completed sample legend to reference while they build.
Extension
Ask teams to add a second smaller watershed on the other side of the ridge, draining the opposite way, and to use both maps to explain how a single ridgeline can send rain to two different rivers.
ELL supports
Provide a labeled diagram of a watershed cross-section with ridgeline, boundary, and outlet marked, plus a home-language gloss where possible. Allow students to answer the debrief by pointing to features on the map while a partner helps put the explanation into words.
Extensions
Teams can find their own community's watershed on a public map, identify the ridgelines and the outlet, and sketch a simple relief version, then explain how the land's shape decides where local runoff goes after a storm.