Everything for the Earth’s Changing Surface test: study cards, the traps to dodge, a practice quiz at three levels — Foundation, On-Level, and Challenge — and a lab where you order rock layers by age, label a river from source to delta, sort weathering from erosion from deposition, and graph an erosion test. Work here, or print it and use a pencil — both count.
A rock on a hillside. Ice and roots crack it into pieces, right where it sits.
Weathering BREAKS rock where it sits. Erosion CARRIES the pieces away. Deposition DROPS them somewhere else. Three different words for three different jobs — and the test always checks whether you can tell them apart.
Two things people get wrong
⚠️People often think…
In a stack of rock layers, the top one is the oldest.
Layers pile up from the bottom, like papers dropped on a desk. The BOTTOM one was there first, so it is oldest, and the top one is newest.
Oldest on the bottom. Newest on top.
⚠️People often think…
A seashell fossil on a hill means somebody carried a shell up there.
A fossil formed where the animal died and got buried. A sea shell in the rock means that spot was UNDER THE SEA once. The rock is telling you about the place, not about a person.
A fossil says what the place used to be.
Break, carry, drop, stack, read
1Watch one
A river cuts a canyon a fraction of an inch a year. How does it get so deep?
Start with one year: barely anything moves.
Now a thousand years of that same barely-anything.
Now a million. Small times huge is not small any more.
Slow does not mean small. It means you have to wait to see it. ✓
2Do one with me
Fill in what shaped the land.
Breaking rock in place is called
In a stack of layers, the oldest one is on the
A delta forms where the water
💬One sentence, then you move on
How is erosion different from weathering?
3Try one
Name one land-shaper Illinois does NOT have.
I want a hint first
It is the one that needs melted rock from deep underground to reach the surface.
Where this goes
Where this lives
Why a driveway cracks over a winter, why mud piles up at the bottom of a hill, why the ground here is so flat and so good for farming.
What this feeds
Next unit is matter — what the rock is made of in the first place.
Name one place near you where water dropped something it was carrying.
One card at a time — tap “Show me” to check yourself, then Next. Start at Foundation; when those feel easy, climb.
Helpful Hints
🪜 From a crack to a canyon — the ladder
Weathering breaks rock → erosion carries the pieces (water, wind, ice, gravity) → deposition drops them (deltas, beaches, dunes) → the pieces settle in layers, oldest at the bottom → fossils in the layers tell what was there → repeat for millions of years, with a few fast surprises.
Break, carry, drop, stack, read.
🤝 The whole topic in one idea
The ground under you is not finished. Water, wind and ice have been breaking it, moving it and piling it up for millions of years — and every layer, fossil and landform is a page of that story you can read.
Fast water carries; slow water drops. That’s why deltas form where rivers slow down.
Slow doesn’t mean small — a canyon is a little erosion times millions of years.
Illinois: glaciers, floods, potholes. NOT volcanoes.
A seashell fossil means ‘this was under the sea’ — not ‘someone dropped a shell here.’
🌊 Four shapers of the land — the chart
Shaper
What it does
What it leaves
Near us
water (rivers, rain)
carves valleys, carries mud
canyons, deltas, floodplains
the Illinois and Mississippi rivers
ice (glaciers, frost)
scrapes land flat, splits rock
flat plains, lakes, potholes
all of Illinois; the Great Lakes
wind
moves sand, sandblasts rock
dunes
the Indiana Dunes
waves
chew cliffs, move beach sand
beaches, cliffs
the Lake Michigan shore
Water, ice, wind, waves.
🎯 How the test will ask
A picture of something happening to rock — “weathering, erosion or deposition?” (breaking, carrying or dropping?).
A drawing of rock layers — “which is oldest?” (the bottom) “what does the fossil tell you?”
An erosion test with three trays — “which lost the most soil and why?” (the bare one).
A world map with dots — “what pattern?” (volcanoes and quakes line the Pacific edge).
✅ Before the test, can you…
Define weathering, erosion and deposition with one example each?
Order four rock layers from oldest to youngest?
Name the parts of a river from source to delta?
Give two slow changes and two fast ones?
Explain what glaciers did to Illinois?
Pick your level
Look back at anything you missed — the hint that appeared is exactly what to reread tonight.
How sure did you feel?
Lab
Work like a scientist: label the diagrams, turn the table into a graph, then write a claim with evidence and reasoning. Every lab checks itself on the spot, and hints are free.
Your practice never leaves this device. There is no account and no sign-in. Your work is saved in this browser only, and you can erase it whenever you want.
Your practice record — saved on this device
This is your record of the module on screen — it stays here and goes nowhere. Independent means you got it right on the first tap; supported means you got it after the explain-and-retry, or marked ‘I had it’ on a revealed answer. Both count, and neither is a grade. If your teacher asks, copy the row or show them this screen.
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Level
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Independent
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Supported
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Hints used
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Cards studied
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Lab
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Traps met
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Explained in own words
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The answer key is for a teacher: it prints only from here, for the unit on screen. Print the study packet prints the study pages and a blank quiz — never the answers.