River Cutters

Natalie Jurischk and Janet Vito

River Cutters: Description

Targeting grades 6 through 9, the River Cutters lesson plan focuses on how rivers and water systems shape and change land forms. Students rarely have the opportunity to get a view and understanding of an entire stream or river system and thus hold misconceptions about how rivers form. Through a series of lessons including six 45-minute sessions, plus a final session for the planning, experimenting/modeling and reporting of experiments, students will have an opportunity to learn how water effects the Earth’s surface, including being able to observe thousands of years of erosion in minutes and being able to visualize entire river systems. By observing and recording results, students will begin to understand rivers as dynamic, ever-changing systems. River Cutters helps students make connections between earth and environmental sciences and real-world issues on how humans can affect river systems in both positive and negative ways. Adding to this, our students live in central Texas and have easy access to river systems.