Year Six River Walk Along The River Elai

This afternoon we took advantage of the weather and decided to go on our much postponed 'River Walk'.

We walked down to the River Elai and sketched some wildlife. We saw plenty of frogs, birds and various plant life.

The course of the MEANDER was easy to spot. We talked about DEPOSITION inside the MEANDER. We also discussed why the Local Authority has put boulders in the river to stop it from ERODING too much.

Here we looked at an ISLAND in the MEANDER. This has built up where the river's load has been DEPOSITED by the MEANDER, because it flows quickly on the outside and slowly on the inside.

Next we decided to measure the FLOW of the river. First we marked out 5m. One of us stood upstream at the starting point while another stood at the 5m point downstream. The third person in our group then dropped a twig in the river and, using stopwatches we measured the time it took to travel the 5m. We then divided the distance by the time and this gave us the speed in metres per second. We found out the speed near the bank and in the middle of the river. It was faster towards the middle because the middle was deeper, carrying more water (TRANSPORTATION), and so increasing the speed (VELOCITY).

Here we are walking on a RIVER BEACH.

We found a CONFLUENCE where a TRIBUTARY called Otters Brook joined the River Elai.

During our River Walk we experienced lots of the features we have been learning about this half term. It was an enjoyable and informative learning experience. Then it rained!!!!!!!!