National Teachers Enhancement Network: Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan: Demonstrating Erosion in Action
Subject: Earth and Space / Soils
Classtime: 60 minutes (can be adjusted as needed)
Grade Level: 3-12

Materials/Technology:
Per group

Five shoe boxes - trimmed to five centimeters deep, v-notched at one end, and lined with plastic (plastic should extend several centimeters beyond notched end), or modified cake pans. These should be the same size.
sprinkling cans or containers (re-cycled plastic pop bottles, discarded liquid soap dispenser bottles)
measuring cups or graduated cylinders (catch cans)
filter paper
funnel
balance
sod (indoor/outdoor carpet, discarded carpet, and terry cloth all work as substitutes)
soil (enough for the five trays to be filled with the same soil)
water
instruction sheets

Safety, Handling, Disposal:
Return materials to original container.

Learner Outcomes:
Students will be able to:

Measure and record volume of water.
Measure and record mass of soil.
Understand the effects of the following in controlling erosion: Contouring, cover crop, strip cropping, reforestation, inter-seeding.

Problem/Purpose:
To develop a hands-on appreciation for the factors that contribute to erosion.

Background/Inquiry:
Soil erosion is an on-going and natural process--a process which has been greatly accelerated in many locations throughout the world during the last one hundred years of human activity. We are all familiar with many of the causes of erosion: uncontrolled burning, agricultural practices, logging, recreational activities, highway and home-site construction, and natural phenomena such as landslides. Although erosion is a natural process, responsible for much of the most fertile agricultural land in the world, the Mississippi River valley for instance, and the Amazon Delta, we have learned that erosion can have devastating effects on the environment. The most significant impact of erosion is on aquatic systems. This activity helps demonstrate the erosion process and the impact of erosion on the environment.

Vocabulary List: Here.

Hypothesis:
Predict which tray will have the most and the least erosion.

Procedures:
Advanced teacher prep -

Divide the class into groups, distribute the materials to each group, and give each group a copy of the instructions or review the instructions with the class.

Student Procedure:

Fill one erosion tray or box with moist soil about 3 cm deep and pack down tightly.
Fill one erosion tray or box with moist soil about 2 cm deep and then place a layer of sod, carpet, or cloth over the top of the soil and pack down tightly.
Fill one erosion tray or box with moist soil about 3 cm deep and, using your finger, make packed furrows (shallow trenches) across the slope (contouring), i.e., across the short direction of the tray.
Fill one erosion tray or box with moist soil about 3 cm deep and, using your finger, make packed furrows (shallow trenches) up and down the slope, i.e., across the long direction of the tray.
Fill one erosion tray or box with moist soil about 3 cm deep and using a ruler make steps across the slope (terracing), i.e, across the short direction of the tray.
Line up the boxes on an incline with the v-notch at the lower end; place catch cans, measuring cups, or some type of drip pan under the v-notch; place the cup or can close enough to the v-notch to prevent splashing.
Have one student from each group simultaneously sprinkle a measured amount of water on each soil tray from a height of about thirty centimeters (12 inches) above each box. The same amount of water should be sprinkled on each tray; pour steadily for five seconds.
Have one student from each group record the length of time from the beginning of the sprinkling until water first starts running out of the v-notch; similarly, record the total length of time water continues to flow out of the v-notch of each tray.

Let the water in the measuring cups or catch cans settle and measure the sediment in each cup. Filter the outflow from each box through a coffee filter and dry and mass the amount of sediment from each box. You can also measure the amount of water that ran off, compared to the amount of water applied.

Data Table

Volume of water poured in five seconds into each container ___________ml.

	Tray 1	Tray 2	Tray 3	Tray 4	Tray 5
Treatment	none	sod/carpet	contour	long trench	terrace
Time for water to begin running
Total time for water to run out of tray
Volume of water that was applied
Volume of water that "ran off"
Dry Mass of solid that "eroded"

Results/Analysis:

Which soil condition lost the most soil?
Which soil condition had the greatest amount of runoff?
In which soil condition did the runoff/erosion appear first and in which soil condition did the runoff last the longest?

Conclusions:

Which land management methods were most effective in controlling erosion in this experiment? Why?

Discuss how each of the following practices relates to this experiment:

Terracing
Contouring
Sod or carpet cover
Research the following terms and explain how these relate to erosion.
Strip cropping
Conservation tillage
Reforestation
Cover cropping
Inter-seeding

Assessments:Examples:

Possible Assessment Questions:

Why should the experimenter pour the same amount of water for the same amount of time on each of the soil conditions?
Does the amount of water collected relate to the soil eroded?

Reflections:
Share your thoughts on this lesson with the NTEN team.

Please send an e-mail to Patti Harrison.

Extensions:
:Variations: If you are completing a fairly detailed unit on soil erosion and conservation, one variation is to allow the students to actually plant cover crops and create landscapes well in advance of this activity. Closely spaced wheat kernels (from the health food, pet, or feed store), alfalfa seeds, mustard seeds, or grass seeds will germinate and sprout in only a few days. Students can have fun creating landscapes, 'real' terraces, contour farmed fields, bare fields, grassed waterways, and many other land features.

References/Resources:

Source: National Wildlife Federation (modified).

Credits
Contributing Teacher: Jim Bauder
NTEN Course: LRES 580: The Dirty Dozen: Twelve Principals of Soil Science
Instructor: Jim Bauder
Developing Team:
T.L. Buck Buchanan, Patti Harrison, Don Samuelson, John Usher, Don Wilson
HTML Programmers: Tyson N. Trebesch, Ryan Huddleston, Andy Tomascak, Ching-Kwong Chia

Up to Top