Landforms, Glaciers, and Erosion

We were lucky this year because we got to take the best Geology Field Trip ever—to the Canadian Rockies! We went to Banff and Jasper National Parks. It was amazing! You can read more about our trip here, but I'm including a few pictures of the mountains and glaciers we saw.

Below, you can read about a few activities we did to learn about these principles when we got back from our trip.

These glaciers were amazing to see! I love the blue tones of the ice as it gets thicker.

This is Athabasca Glacier—you can walk right up onto this one.

Gorgeous turquoise glacial lake

Perfect example of a glacial U-shaped valley!

One day we made play-dough (this is my favorite recipe) and the children made all the different kinds of landforms we'd been learning about: mountains, glaciers, moraines, volcanoes, and so forth.

A cave!

Fold mountain

A volcanic mountain range (from a hot spot). And I think there are some hoodoos in there too.

Teddy, very serious about his fold mountain…

and his sinkhole!

Fault-block and tectonic plate collision mountains

While in Canada, we stayed at a house by a river and found some beautiful river rocks.

They were already so smooth and flat and pretty! We collected a few…

And took them home to polish in our rock tumbler!

Didn't they turn out beautifully?

Another fun way to make landforms in with sand in a cake pan—then you pour water in to make deltas, rivers, lakes, etc. More pictures and ideas here.

Another activity we did was making some big blocks of ice and then experimenting with them on a nearby hill. We learned about glacial till, terminal and lateral moraines, cirques, glacial striations, etc. And, we had fun sliding down the hill on our ice blocks! :)

You can find more glacier activities here. And even more here.