Grade 6 Lab / experiment
The Stannard Brook Stream Table: Slope, Sediment, and Runoff
A grade 6 lab in which students build a stream table, change its slope, and measure how far sediment travels and how cloudy the runoff becomes.
NGSS · Middle School (6–8)
MS-ESS2-1 Model the cycling of Earth's materials and the energy that drives it
Develop a model to describe the cycling of Earth's materials and the flow of energy that drives this process.
Clarification statement: Emphasis is on the processes of melting, crystallization, weathering, deformation, and sedimentation, which act together to form minerals and rocks through the cycling of Earth's materials.
Assessment boundary: Assessment does not include the identification and naming of minerals.
Why water teaches this standard well
Water is the workhorse of the rock cycle this standard models: it weathers rock, carries sediment, and deposits it downstream. Studying how rivers move and sort earth materials connects the rock cycle to the sediment that treatment plants must remove and the reservoirs that slowly fill with silt.
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