What do you notice is happening in this photograph?
The fourth grade performance expectation 4-ESS2-1 asks students to: “Make observations and/or measurements to provide evidence of the effects of weathering or the rate of erosion by water, ice, wind, or vegetation.” In our fourth grade informational text for this performance expectation, Stunning Sinkholes! by Sarah Wassner Flynn, students learn how the hydrosphere and the geosphere interact to form sinkholes. You can access the text here.
After students have read the text, if they would like to know more about sinkholes, this brief 3-D animation shows different reasons sinkholes might form.
This animated video that explains how weathering and erosion work together:
> Study Jams: Weathering & Erosion
Students will have fun playing this interactive game where they will learn about weathering and erosion and guess which agent of weathering and erosion created each interesting land feature:
> National Geographic: Walter’s Travels – Weathering and Erosion
Stunning Sinkholes! is found in, StarrMatica Texts: Science Your Way, a collection of informational texts written specifically to address every K-5 NGSS Performance Expectation. All texts in the collection begin with a phenomenon photo and are written at six different Lexile levels, so all students can read the same content at their reading level. You can find out more about StarrMatica Texts: Science Your Way here.
