Suggestions and Extensions for Teachers

Since creating a glacier or performing quarry activities in your own home or classroom can be difficult to say the least, below are some suggestions that we hope you will find useful as teaching tools.
 

Extensions for Kames
Discuss the processes responsible for the formation of a kame and describe how this glacial feature is characterized on a topographic map. Provide other topographic maps containing kames, and have the students identify them from their characteristic shape.
 

Extensions for Eskers
Discuss the processes responsible for the formation of eskers and describe how this glacial feature is characterized on a topographic map. Provide other topographic maps containing eskers, and have the students identify them from their characteristic shape. Students can also collect samples of the sands and gravels for identification. The students can try to estimate the relative distances that the sediments were transported by the glacier based on the degree of rounding and clast size.
 

Extensions for Quarries
Teachers and students can gather data concerning depth, texture and composition of rock layers. The students can then create a stratigraphic column based on the data gathered. The teacher could gather various rock samples from the quarry. The teacher could give the rock samples to the students without telling them what the rock is. The students will then be asked to perform various tests on the rocks in order to correctly identify them. This activity could be done before the field trip to introduce the quarry or it could be done after the field trip in order to bring closure to the field trip.

The teacher could also engage the students in an art activity as a form of closure to the field trip. The students will take a shoebox and take off the top of the shoebox. The students need to tape a piece of cardboard to the open face of the box. Then the students will pile in various sediments in order to create a model quarry. After the students have compacted the sediments, they will glue a piece of cardboard to the open end of the box (area in which they were able to place the material). The students will then lay the box down on the side and remove the cardboard that they taped to the box. After the cardboard is removed, the students will be able to see the quarry.
 

Back to Main Page