At-Home STEM Activities: Paper Mountains
Create your own world of mountains and valleys, and watch the effects of a rainstorm!
Appropriate for pre-k and up, with supervision (mess potential!)
Materials:
White paper
Washable markers
Water
Spoon or dropper
Surface that can get a little messy
Process:
Crumple up a piece of paper, and then gently open it up most of the way. It should still show ridges (high points) and valleys (low points).
Choose one of the ridges. Gently run your fingertip along its surface and think about its shape.
Use a marker to color along the ridge. Make sure to get lots of ink onto the paper. (Younger learners may need adult assistance with this part.)
Make a prediction: If a rainstorm fell onto this mountain, where would the water go? We will easily be able to see how the water moves on our ridges, because of the marker ink!
Test your prediction: Use a spoon or dropper to dribble a small amount of water onto your ridge from above. Watch what happens.
Was your prediction correct? Did the water flow in the way you’d expected?
w choose a few other ridges in your landscape and color them with different markers. How do you think the movement of the water will change if you add more mountains and more rainstorms? Do your predictions change as you make more observations?
Think deeper
Does the flow of water from one mountain effect the way water moves around the the other mountains? As lakes and rivers form, do they behave the way you’d expect? Are they filled by one mountain or many? Where do you think would be the safest place to build your house in this mountain range? Why?
The shape of the land and the pull of gravity both influence how water moves over Earth. The way the marker ink moves in this activity shows how water can carry surface particles through a watershed: an area where the land drains into a shared body of water.
