Investigating topography caused by Glacial Lake Agassiz and glacial river Warren in the Big Stone Lake area.

This activity is designed to help the students see the land formation caused by the Glacial Lake Agassiz and glacial river Warren.
Skills being used in this lesson will include: observation, collecting data, questioning, and critical thinking.
Key concepts include:
The topography of the Big Stone Lake area.
How that topography was caused by Glacial Lake Agassiz being drained by glacial river Warren.
Vocabulary:
topography
glacier
ice sheet
till
glacial drift
moraines

I will be teaching this unit in 9th grade Earth and Space science class. My class size is around 17 students per section. This lesson will start out with a field investigation where the students are to observe the landscape and generate some questions about how it formed. From there we will move into the classroom and research some or all of the questions the students generated. I plan on spending 2 hours on the field investigation, (including travel time) and 2 to 3 class periods researching and answering questions in the classroom. From that point we will talk about Glacial Lake Agassiz and Glacial River Warren. I will be doing this field investigation in early October as a part of my 2nd unit covering the earth. The only equipment needed is the student's journal and a pencil. The only prior knowledge needed to do this project is the knowledge of how to formulate an investigable question. This activity could be done as a part of any topography unit.

For this field investigation I will be taking my students to Bonanza Educational Center on Big Stone Lake. This area was the south end of Glacial Lake Agassiz. The water cut the valley when Glacial River Warren drained Lake Agassiz. I will have the students go to the top of the prairie and write down observations and draw sketches of the topography. I will give them 15 minutes to make their observations (without talking to anyone) and then we will move down to the lake side and do the same thing. Next we will go into the educational center and have them brainstorm questions in small groups. If needed they can take their group back to each spot and point out things others may not have noticed or do not understand. Next we will travel back to the classroom. The next couple days will be spent answering and researching the questions each group has come up with. Finally we will study the glacial Lake Agassiz and Glacier River Warren and hopefully tie the history of our area and the glaciers together.
(I will also call on this journaling and sketching when we cover the topo maps and our groundwater unit.)

This lesson has students actually going out to the site and drawing and making notes about it. We can then look back at the notes when we cover other units related to this. Students will also be generating their own questions.

As the students are journaling and sketching I will walk around and check their ideas. I will also do an informal assessment on the questions that each group comes up with and shares.

Standards match
8 III A.5
9-12 III A.5