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Year 4 · Rivers, weather and the water cycle

The water cycle and rivers

Describe and understand key aspects of physical geography, including climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts, rivers, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes, and the water cycle

25 minutes4 checks6 exit questionsNational curriculum objective

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Describe and understand key aspects of physical geography, including climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts, rivers, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes, and the water cycle

Key learning points

  • • Four steps, forever
  • • Where the water goes on land
  • • From source to mouth
  • • Rivers reshape the ground

This lesson at a glance

  • 25 minutes
  • 19 parts to scroll through
  • 4 quick checks
  • No marked quiz yet
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

aspectsphysicalgeographyclimatebiomes

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 19 · Discover5%
1

Watch & discover

Part 1 of 19

Watch first

The water cycle and rivers

Follow a drop of water as it rises, makes clouds and falls as rain.

Do it for real

The practicals below use what the film shows, with a full method you can follow at home.

Build a rain gauge and measure a week of weatherMake a river in a tray

In a nutshell

Describe and understand key aspects of physical geography, including climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts, rivers, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes, and the water cycle

2

What you already know

Part 2 of 19

Before we start

What you already know

You know that water can be a liquid, a gas and a solid.

3

Key words

Part 3 of 19

Key words

Words you'll need today

evaporation
Liquid water turning into water vapour, a gas.
condensation
Water vapour cooling back into tiny drops.
precipitation
Water falling as rain, snow, sleet or hail.
source
Where a river begins; the mouth is where it ends.
4

Learning cycle

Part 4 of 19

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 — Water going round

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

5

Explore the idea

Part 5 of 19

Learn

Four steps, forever

The Sun heats seas, lakes and puddles, and water evaporates into the air. High up it cools and condenses into clouds. When the drops grow heavy enough they fall as precipitation. Water then flows over or through the ground back to the sea, and it starts again.

6

Explore the idea

Part 6 of 19

Learn

Where the water goes on land

Some rainwater soaks into soil and rock, and some runs across the surface into streams. Streams join to make rivers. That is why heavy rain on hard ground causes floods quickly: there is nowhere for it to soak away.

7

Quick check

Part 7 of 19

Quick check

Water turning into a gas is called...

8

Quick check

Part 8 of 19

Quick check

Clouds form when water vapour...

9

Reset break

Part 9 of 19

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
10

Learning cycle

Part 10 of 19

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 — What rivers do to the land

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

11

Explore the idea

Part 11 of 19

Learn

From source to mouth

A river starts at its source, usually on high ground, runs fast and narrow through steep valleys, then widens and slows across flatter land, and finally reaches its mouth at the sea. Along the way it collects tributaries — smaller rivers joining it.

12

Explore the idea

Part 12 of 19

Learn

Rivers reshape the ground

Fast water erodes: it scrapes rock and soil away and carries the pieces. Slower water deposits: it drops what it was carrying, building up mud banks and flat floodplains. Erosion and deposition together carve valleys and bend rivers into loops.

13

Quick check

Part 13 of 19

Quick check

A river's mouth is...

14

Quick check

Part 14 of 19

Quick check

Fast-flowing water mainly...

15

Investigate evidence

Part 15 of 19

Evidence 1 of 1

primary

A river gauging station record

Environment Agency river level monitoring, One week of readings

Mon 0.42 m, Tue 0.41 m, Wed 1.86 m, Thu 1.54 m, Fri 0.88 m, Sat 0.60 m, Sun 0.51 m. Rainfall on Tuesday night: 38 mm.

River levels are measured automatically all day so flood warnings can be issued early.

Think like a historian

What happened on Wednesday, and what in the record explains it? Why did the level not drop straight back down?

Source: Public river level data.

View the archive record ↗
16

Common mix-ups

Part 16 of 19

Common mix-ups

Things people often get wrong

  • Thinking the water cycle makes new water. The same water is recycled.
  • Mixing up evaporation and condensation.
  • Thinking rivers only start when it rains. Many are fed by springs and melting snow.
17

Challenge round

Part 17 of 19

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

18

Mastery quiz

Part 18 of 19

No quiz for this one

This lesson has no marked quiz attached yet.

19

Lesson round-up

Part 19 of 19

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Case study

Flooding on the River Calder

The town of Harbrook sits where a steep valley opens onto a flat floodplain. In December 2015, 120 mm of rain fell in 36 hours onto ground that was already saturated. The river rose 2.4 m in five hours, and 380 homes and 54 businesses flooded. Two roads and the railway closed for eleven days.

Geographers pointed to physical causes — steep slopes, impermeable rock, heavy rainfall — and human causes: moorland drained upstream, new housing built on the floodplain, and drains designed for smaller storms.

Since then the town has planted 40 hectares of woodland upstream, built leaky dams in small streams, and raised flood walls to 1.8 m. In the storm of 2020 the peak river level was 0.3 m lower and 40 homes flooded, not 380.

Written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. List two physical and two human causes of the 2015 flood.
  2. Explain how planting woodland upstream lowers the river's peak level.
  3. Using the figures, judge how successful the scheme has been. Quote data in your answer.

Source for this lesson

Use this for the source work task below.

A river gauging station record

primary

Environment Agency river level monitoring, One week of readings

Mon 0.42 m, Tue 0.41 m, Wed 1.86 m, Thu 1.54 m, Fri 0.88 m, Sat 0.60 m, Sun 0.51 m. Rainfall on Tuesday night: 38 mm.

River levels are measured automatically all day so flood warnings can be issued early.

Source: Public river level data.

View the original record ↗

  • Case study notes

    Writing

    Write the place, the facts and the figures from this lesson so you can revise them later.

    Half a page

  • Explain answer

    Writing

    Answer in full sentences, giving causes and effects. Use one figure or place name as evidence.

    8–10 sentences

  • Map or sketch

    Diagram

    Draw the map, cross-section or field sketch with a key, title and labels, then photograph it.

    1 map with a key

  • Data work

    Working out

    Plot your figures as a graph on paper and write one sentence about the pattern.

    1 graph + 1 sentence

Saved as you type.

Part 1 of 19 · Watch & discover

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