005 - Glacial Depositional Landforms

Factual Question

How do the processes of depostion created landforms in glaciated environments?

Approaches to Learning

Research - Media Literacy Skills - Interacting with media to use and create ideas and information - Compare, contrast and draw connections among (multi)media resources.

Key Terminology

  • Transportation

  • Deposition

  • Moraine

  • Drumlin

  • Erratic


We will be exploring what the terms above mean during the course of the lesson but if you are still unsure click on the 'Useful Links' below:


Useful Links

Activity One - Comprehension

Before we can explore the different landforms created by glacial deposition we need to know how a glacier transports and deposits its material (the rocks).


  1. In what ways does a glacier transport its material?

  2. What is deposition?

  3. How does a glacier deposit its material?

Useful Resources

How do glaciers shape the land?

Oxford Education

Activity Two - Skill

The landforms that we will be looking at occur when the glacier is advancing and retreating, we just can't see them very clearly until after the glacier has retreated. This would be in an interglacial period or a period of warming, the period we are currently in now. For this activity you are going to need a pencil, rule and a set of crayons. You are going to be drawing a glacial landscape that shows the key depositional landforms and then adding annotations to it to explain how the features are created.


  1. Collect a piece of A4 paper.

  2. Draw a landscape diagram to illustrate where the following landforms are generally found in a glacial landscape and what they look like:

            • Lateral Moraine

            • Medial Moraine

            • Terminal Moraine

            • Erratics

            • Drumlins

  3. Give the landforms a title by labelling them.

  4. Add annotations to the diagram to explain how the landforms are created.

Skills

Label - this is either the name of the feature or identifies something about the feature.

Annotate - From a short sentence to a paragraph, describing or explaining something about the feature.

Useful Resources

Activity Three - Justify - Extension

Looking at the landforms that you have just learnt about which one do your find the most interesting and why. Write one or two paragraphs to justify your choice. We will discuss your ideas towards the end of the lesson.