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4th grade · Science · Unit 14 of 14

Rock Layers & Erosion

Evidence in rock layers and fossils, and erosion by water, ice and wind.

What your child practices

Your child reads rock layers and fossils as clues to the past and explains how water, ice and wind wear land away.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 4.11; 4.12 · evidence in rock layers and fossils, and erosion by water, ice and wind

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Weathering breaks rock. Erosion moves it. Deposition drops it in a new place.
  2. Water freezing in cracks and roots growing in them break rock apart.
  3. Wind shapes sand dunes. Water and ice carry rock too.
  4. Rock layers and fossils are evidence of how places changed.

Example: Water fills a crack in a rock, freezes and widens it. Weathering or erosion? The rock is being broken, not carried away. Answer: weathering

Rock Layers & Erosion in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 14 of 14 in 4th grade Science, after Energy Resources.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Which slows erosion on a hillside?

    • Removing all plants
    • Pouring water
    • Plants and their roots
    • Digging

  2. Question 2

    Rain falling on a slope with no plants will…

    • make new rock
    • grow plants at once
    • wash away more soil
    • wash away less soil

  3. Question 3

    Which carries soil from Alabama farms into rivers during a storm?

    • Running water
    • Snow on mountains in July
    • Sunlight
    • Moonlight

  4. Question 4

    Wind blowing sand against a rock for many years slowly…

    • turns the rock to ice
    • makes the rock heavier
    • wears the rock down
    • makes the rock grow

  5. Question 5

    Which moves rock and soil the most in a river valley?

    • Sound
    • Moonlight
    • Running water
    • Sunlight

  6. Question 6

    Dropping sediment in a new place is called…

    • evaporation
    • weathering
    • erosion
    • deposition

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