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5th grade · Science · Unit 14 of 15

Deltas, Canyons & Dunes

How wind, water and ice build and carve landforms.

What your child practices

Practices how changes to Earth's surface by wind, water and ice form landforms such as deltas, canyons and sand dunes, with Texas examples like Palo Duro Canyon, Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend, the Monahans Sandhills and the Rio Grande delta.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 5.10(C) · how wind, water and ice form landforms such as deltas, canyons and sand dunes

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Moving water carves canyons by eroding the riverbed over a very long time.
  2. A delta forms where a river slows and drops sediment as it enters a larger body of water.
  3. Wind piles sand into dunes, like the Monahans Sandhills.
  4. Glaciers carve valleys and drop rock.

Example: Where does a delta form? A river slows when it reaches a lake or the sea. It drops its sediment there. Answer: where a river enters a larger body of water

Deltas, Canyons & Dunes in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 14 of 15 in 5th grade Science, after Spinning Earth, Moving Shadows and before Born Knowing or Learned?.

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: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

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

    Rocks and soil carried by water, wind or ice are called…

    • fossils
    • magma
    • lava
    • sediment

  2. Question 2

    Which landform is built up rather than carved out?

    • A valley cut by a glacier
    • A delta
    • A gully
    • A canyon

  3. Question 3

    Dropping sediment in a new place is…

    • weathering
    • evaporation
    • deposition
    • erosion

  4. Question 4

    A deep valley with steep sides cut by a river over a very long time is a…

    • plain
    • delta
    • dune
    • canyon

  5. Question 5

    Moving sediment from one place to another is…

    • condensation
    • deposition
    • erosion
    • melting

  6. Question 6

    Which pair matches the force to the landform?

    • Wind → delta
    • Ice → sand dune
    • River → glacier
    • Wind → sand dune

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