Topic: On the river bank

Author: Zyta Sendecka

Target group

Students of the 4th grade of an elementary school.

Core curriculum

4th grade

Detailed requirements:

VI. The natural environment of the nearest area. The student:

5) distinguishes standing and flowing waters, gives their names and indicates natural and artificial water reservoirs.

The general aim of education

The students name river sections and describe the impact of rivers on the environment in their individual sections.

Criteria of success

• You will name river sections;

• make a river model taking into account the mountains, uplands and lowlands;

• explain where the water in the rivers comes from and how it flows.

Key competences

• communication in the mother tongue; 

• communication in foreign languages;

• mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology; 

• digital competence; 

• learning to learn; 

• sense of initiative and entrepreneurship.

Methods / techniques

Conversation, work with text and work with the use of the model.

Work in pairs and in groups.

Teaching aids

• abstract;

• interactive or traditional board;

• tablets/computers;

• drawing of a river.

Lesson plan overview (Process)

Before lesson

A week before the lesson, the teacher divides the class into groups. Each group has to search for information on the materials to be used to make the model of the area as best as possible, collect these materials and bring them to the lesson.

Introduction

1. The teacher asks the students how to explain what a river is. The teacher writes the most accurate definition on the board.

2. The teacher asks the students to formulate the topic of the lesson, then gives the goals and the criteria of success in a language understandable for the students.

Realization

1. The teacher divides the students into pairs and each pair is given a drawing showing a river (from the source to the mouth on the example of the graphic entitled „Elements of the river”), without a description. Using only the description of the chapter entitled „River in sections”, the students mark and sign in their drawings basic information about the river: upper course, middle course, lower course, source, tributary, oxbow, oxbow lake, estuary.

2. The students compare their descriptions with the graphics in the abstract.

3. The teacher asks the students to work in groups, make a model of a river, preserving the colours learnt during the lesson with a hypsometric map.

4. Representatives of the groups present their models.

5. The teacher asks the students to watch a film and observe where the water in the rivers comes from and why the water flows where it flows.

After the film, the students provide answers to the questions.

Summary

The teacher asks the students to perform the selected interactive task by themselves.

Homework

The teacher asks keen students to carry out an observation concerning the method of determining and measuring water speed and document it in a film, e.g. recorded with a mobile phone.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

On the river bank

Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus commenting on the constantly changing world, once said: “No man ever steps in the same river twice.” He was right – water in a river keeps flowing all the time. Once you are out of a river, the water in it is different a second later. Plus, rivers change all the time.

A river in simplest terms is water flowing over the ground in a natural channel. Larger rivers are joined by smaller ones called tributaries. An area occupied by a river and its tributaries is called river basin. Three sections of a river may be distinguished: upper course, middle course and lower course. Upper course starts at the source , i.e. the place where the river begins. In Poland most sources are located in mountains and uplands. Due to big height differences (i.e. steep slope) water in the upper course flows fast.The middle course is usually characterised by slower water flow rate than in the upper course. River wears away its banks making its valley wider and taking away small rock particles. If the riverbed is winding, water flows faster by the bank on the outside of each bend. On the inside of bend water speed is lower and that is where water deposits sediments. As a result of this process meanders are formed; with time meanders may be cut off from the river by sediment and become oxbow lakes. Lower course is characterised by the slowest water speed. It ends with a mouth,i.e. the place where river joins another river, lake or sea. In the mouth area rivers deposit large quantities of sediments which may lead to a delta being formed. In a delta the riverbed is divided into many branches with wetlands in between.

Each river has a few distinct features:

• beginning – usually a source, but some rivers begin, for example, in a lake;

• current is the fastest flowing stream of water in the river; in straight sections the current usually runs in the middle of the riverbed, while in bends – closer to the outside bank;

• direction of flow of the river is always directed from source to mouth; it may be recognised by observation of the current;

• river banks are always determined after finding out the direction of flow; turn your back towards the source and face the mouth of the river to tell the right and left bank.

• Rivers start their course in sources (they can also start it, for example in lakes) and end up in estuaries.

• We divide the course of the river into: upper, middle and lower.

• In the middle course of the river, the water destroys the banks and, as a result, the bends and then the oxbow lakes are formed.

• After heavy rains or spring thaw, rivers can flood and flood.