Scholars had the chance to go to 5 different stations. At one station, they focused on the different layers/types of soil found here. At another scholars learned where our water came from and explored what a watershed is and how it affects the world around us. Scholars also took a small hike down the shore at Grapevine Lake. It was an amazing opportunity to see real world examples of weathering and erosion that has happened in our own back yard since the floods in 2015. It was crazy to see how high the water had gotten and how it had changed the land around it. Lastly, scholars had the opportunity to explore water retention once more with soil from the ground found in this area.
After the field trip, our scholars used actual stream tables test some questions they had created the week before. Based on observations from our previous stream table lab, scholars wrote down I wonder statements. We took these statements and created 5 questions they could answer using stream tables. Scholars were put into groups and they design and tested their experiment.
Scholars spent the next week taking their observations and data from their stream table labs and our field trip to the lake to write a CER (claim, evidence, reasoning) about how erosion changes the way our Earth looks over time.
As we wrapped up weathering, erosion and deposition, we dove into natural resources. By now, most scholars know what a natural resource is and most even know the difference between renewable and nonrenewable resources. We did a quick modeling activity with beans to show how renewable resources are slowly replenished over time and if we are not careful, we will eventually run out of our nonrenewable resources such as oil, coal and natural gas.
For scholars to gain a better understanding of how oil and natural gas are formed, we created a model with bread and different gummy creatures. The bread represent layers of sediment and the gummy creatures represented the dead plants and animals that would have floated to the bottom of the ocean. Over millions of years, the organic matter would be covered by more and more layers of sediment and the heat and pressure (aka the textbook we put on top) would eventually change the organic matter into oil and natural gas. Scholars took a blind core sample to see if they struck oil! Some were successful, not all were so lucky.
For scholars to gain a better understanding of how oil and natural gas are formed, we created a model with bread and different gummy creatures. The bread represent layers of sediment and the gummy creatures represented the dead plants and animals that would have floated to the bottom of the ocean. Over millions of years, the organic matter would be covered by more and more layers of sediment and the heat and pressure (aka the textbook we put on top) would eventually change the organic matter into oil and natural gas. Scholars took a blind core sample to see if they struck oil! Some were successful, not all were so lucky.
