Joan M. Longmire
|Illinois Geographic Alliance 2001 Alaska Cruise
Eastview Middle School
321 N. Oak Avenue
Bartlett, IL 60103

This activity is designed to teach students about the erosional force of glacial ice and how it transforms the shape of the Earth’s surface.

This activity is designed for use in Physical Geography and Earth Science classes.

Teaching Level: Grades 6-8

State Goal 12: Understand the fundamental concepts, principles and interconnections of the life, physical and earth/space sciences.

Learning Standard E. Know and apply concepts that describe the features and processes of the Earth and its resources.

12.E.3b: Describe interactions between solid earth, oceans, atmosphere and organisms that have resulted in ongoing changes of Earth.

State Goal 17: Understand world geography and the effects of geography on society, with an emphasis on the United States.

Learning Standard B: Analyze and explain characteristics and interactions of the Earth’s physical systems.

17.B.3a: Explain how physical processes including climate, plate tectonics, erosion, soil formation, water cycle, and circulation patterns in the ocean shape patterns in the environment and influence availability and quality of natural resources.

Applications of Learning:

1. Communicating: Express and interpret information and ideas.
2. Working on teams: Learn and contribute productively as individuals and as members of groups.

Objective: Students will be able to illustrate how the erosional agent of ice produces distinctive landforms.

Essential Element: Physical Systems

Standard #7: The physical processes that shape the patterns of Earth’s surface.

Knowledge Statement #1: How physical processes shape patterns in the physical environment.

Skill Set #3: Organize geographic information

Skill #3: Prepare various forms of diagrams, tables, and charts to organize and display geographic information.

Materials (for the student)

1. Text or books on glaciation
2. Colored paper: white and brown
3. Clay and other materials for the making of a model
4. Paper and pencil or pen for note taking

Opening the Lesson

1. Show slides, photographs or a video about glaciers. If the teacher has been to Alaska or a student’s parent has, sharing these makes this lesson more personal.
2. Ask key questions: What is a glacier? How is a glacier formed? Where are glaciers found? How does a glacier change the landscape?

Developing the Lesson

1. Read from text about glaciers, if you have one. If not use encyclopedias or books about glaciers from your school library. Make sure the students are looking for the answers to the key questions from the opening of the lesson.
2. Use diagrams from text or photocopies of diagrams that illustrate a moving glacier and label (or have the students label) the following: tongue of glacier, head of glacier, terminal moraine, lateral moraine, medial moraine, erratic, iceberg, and cirque.
3. Students should look at different types of glaciers: piedmont glacier, tidewater glacier, valley glacier, hanging glacier and cirque glacier. They should define all the terms related to glacier.
4. To give a simple demonstration of a moving glacier, have students take a brown sheet of paper. Cut small pieces from the edge and place them as loose material on the larger sheet. Cut a tongue shape from a white piece of paper. Have students push it across the brown paper pushing the small pieces to the front and side. Discuss what is happening. Have students look at pictures of glaciated topography to see what is left from retreating glaciers including the moraines, erratics, u-shaped valleys, and cirque lakes.

Concluding the Lesson

Divide students into groups that will create models that illustrate the glacial topography of Alaska in various stages: 1: before the glacier, 2: an expanding glacier, 3: a retreating glacier, and 4: the remaining topography after the glacier is gone.

Students can to the following:

1. Map the location of the world’s glaciers
2. Research the period of continental glaciers and map their extent
3. Research the succession of plants that occur after the retreat of the glacier, and
4. Research the animal life that lives in the regions of glaciers.

Alaska’s Glaciers. Alaska Geographic. Vol. 9 No. 1. 1982.

Blue Ice in Motion: The Story of Alaska’s Glaciers. by Sally D. Wiley. The Alaska Natural History Association, Anchorage. 1990.

Glaciers and Icecaps. by Martyn Bramwell. Earth Science Library. Franklin Watts Inc. New York. 1986.

Icebergs and Glaciers. by Seymour Simon. William Morrow and Co. Inc. New York. 1987.

The Power of Ice. by Ruth Radlauer and Lisa Sue Gitkin. Children’s Press, Chicago. 1985.

Return to Alaskan Study Tour Lesson Plans