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Landforms Mobile

Landforms Mobile

Earth's surface features are multifold and diverse. Students will explore some of these landforms and create a mobile to display them.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Paper
  • Recycled Cardboard Tube
  • String

Steps

  • Step 1

    A landform is a natural physical feature of a planet. Constructive forces, such as a volcano eruption, cause landforms to grow. Destructive forces, such as weathering and erosion, cause landforms to wear down. Ask students to name some that they can think of such as hills, coral reefs, glaciers, islands, oceans, plateaus, mountains, swamps, etc. There are many!

  • Step 2

    Have students select a few to illustrate. Ask them to draw and label them on paper and then cut them out. Have them write a sentence or two on the back of each to describe/define the landform and tell where it might be located.

  • Step 3

    Have them put a hole in the top of each one and tie a piece of string onto it. Encourage them to alternate the length of each piece of string.

  • Step 4

    Ask students to decorate a paper towel tube and place holes along the length of the tube into which they'll tie each landform cut-out.

Standards

SCI: Design pictorial or graphic representations/models that are useful in communicating ideas.

SCI: Convey designs through sketches, detailed drawings, or physical models to communicate ideas and solutions.

Adaptations

The Grand Canyon is a landform that was formed over millions of years. Have students investigate its development and learn some interesting facts about it; for example, did you know it creates its own weather? And it has a human population. Supai Village is within the Havasupai Indian Reservation, and it is the only place where mail is still delivered by pack mule.

Have students select a landform to create out of Model Magic or Air-Dry Clay and write an accompanying fact sheet about it. Encourage them to make the structure as realistic as possible.