Grade 3s Learn About Erosion from Resident Expert

January 28, 2022

Academics

GNS

The Grade 3s have been tackling their latest IB PYP Unit of Inquiry ‘How the world works’ where they have been exploring the central idea of ‘The natural features of the Earth have been formed over time and continue to change.’

Students have been looking at the components of the planet, factors that create change, and the effect of change on Earth. On January 21, students were visited by Ms. Gina Simpson, MYP Coordinator and resident Geography expert (she formerly taught IB Geography in the Senior School).

Ms. Simpson helped the class to form a better understanding of the different landforms that can be created by ice, wind and water erosion. Students were able to conduct a hands-on experiment where they had to create a landscape out of topsoil and think about how water would affect their landscape. Students made hypotheses about what would happen and then tested those out by ‘raining’ water over their landscape to see the impact that the rain had on their landscape’s soil.

“We were learning about different kinds of erosion, and how it can get caused,” said Ciaran. “What stood out to me was learning how the ocean can carve out land and break the rock up over time to make an arch.”

“My favourite part of the afternoon was being able to do the experiments,” added Juliette. “You get to see the experience when you are doing the experiment, which is neat.”

For the Grade 3s, having the beach right at their doorstep makes learning about erosion fun as they work their way through this unit of inquiry.

“It’s really cool because I never knew erosion happened like that,” said Cora. “We learned how you can tell what season it is by looking at the water.”

The students learned many new facts about the world around them, some of which are going to stick with them.

“It takes a long time for water erosion to happen,” said Lucas. “It happens really slow and I never knew that.”