Grade 6 Learns About Water Erosion  

This past month, the students have been learning about the many different agents of erosion. This week, they began learning about how water can act as a very devastating agent of erosion. As some people may know, there are many different types of erosion caused by water. A few of these types of water erosion are caused by something known as "water-runoff."

The students learned that water-runoff is primarily rainwater or snow melt that flows across the earth's surface. They also learned that water-runoff only occurs when the water does not soak into the ground or evaporate into the air. Although these are the two key factors that induce water-runoff, the students also learned about other factors can influence it as well. One of these factors deals with the slope and/or steepness of an area of land. The students ended their first few days of water erosion by getting a first-hand look at how the steepness of an area of land affects water-runoff.

The first-hand look was a demonstration during class. The paint trays were used to hold a fixed amount of soil and represented an area of land being ravaged by a rainstorm. Through the demonstration, the students were able to see that the steeper area of land allowed a greater amount of runoff to occur. This is due to the fact that the water did not have time to soak into the ground as it moved down the slope. That being said, the area of land with a gentler slope had less water run-off because there was adequate time for the water to soak into the ground.