teaching weathering in song!

So, I used to work out at a Summer Camp called Sky Ranch.

Sky didn't only have a Summer Camp, they also had an Outdoor Education camp, which is the actual department I worked in for my year-long tenure.

Basically, we brought different schools out to our camp ground throughout the school year.  Schools would stay anywhere from just being there for 1 day to staying for 5 days.  During their time on our camp-grounds, we took the students out around our property to teach them Science in the great outdoors.

One of the classes I got a chance to teach a lot was a class called "Forces of Nature".  This class was all about the natural forces at work that most people don't even think about.  We focused on Gravity, Friction (including Wind Resistance), Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition.  The Gravity and Friction sections of the class were easy to teach.  We got to take the kids to our Zip Line and Rocket-building area and run different experiments with them.

The Weathering/Erosion/Deposition (W-E-D from here on out) section was the beating - not just for the students, either. It was very dry and very difficult to make exciting, especially after the Zip Line and Rockets sections! Not to mention, W-E-D is very abstract and hard to imagine for a 4th-6th grader.

So, we came up with a song. "Weathering Breaks it. Erosion Takes it..." and then we couldn't figure out how to finish it off.

Last year, I worked at a Middle School where I got to tutor kids in Science.  And, wouldn't you know it, my favorite topic came up in tutoring: none other than W-E-D!  I taught my students the song from Sky Ranch, and then I filled them in on the fact that we couldn't figure out a way to include deposition, too.

So, they put their brains to work, and this is what they came up with:

 Say it to any beat.  Fast. Slow. Medium.

Say it in any voice. Normal. Witch. Cowpoke. New Yawkuh (or is that Jersey?). 

With the last line, you slow down on the word "Deposition" by emphasizing each syllable.

You can even add hand motions for the kinesthetic learners!

proud of my students,

the craft rookie