Flooding rivers
Lesson details
Learning outcome
You can identify some causes and impacts of flooding and give recent examples.
Key learning points
- Rivers flood when they can’t hold all the water that is entering into them from tributaries, the soil and the rock.
- Heavy rainfall or long-lasting rainfall is a common cause of flooding.
- Steep slopes can cause flooding as rainwater will run quickly downhill to the river during a storm.
- Humans can make flooding more likely by deforestation and building tarmac and concrete surfaces.
Keywords
Banks - The sides of a river are called its banks.
Drainage basin - A drainage basin is the area drained by a river and its tributaries.
Deforestation - Deforestation is where trees are chopped down by humans.
Common misconception
River flooding is only influenced by natural factors like the amount of rainfall.
Humans can make flooding more likely by building towns and cities and deforestation.
Teacher tip
Take the class into the playground to test whether water will soak into different surfaces. Try this with soil, grass and tarmac, and then relate this to how humans can cause flooding.
Licence
Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Which direction does a river flow?
Q2.Which of these statements describe the river in the image?
Q3.Which of these is a landform in the upper course?
Q4.Where would you find an estuary?
Q5.Bouncing, floating, rolling and dissolved are all ways the river does what?
Q6.What do we call the path a river takes from its source at the start to its mouth at the end? Unscramble the letters to find the answer.
Assessment exit quiz
6 Questions
Q1.How does rainwater enter a river?
Q2.A river floods when water rises over its...
Q3.Are these human or natural causes of flooding?
Q4.How do trees help reduce the risk of flooding?
Q5.Towns and cities have grown , and this increases the risk of flooding.
Q6.What type of surfaces increase the risk of flooding?
To help you plan your 3 geography lesson on: Flooding rivers, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 3 geography lesson on: Flooding rivers, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 2 geography lessons from the Rivers: what's special about them? unit, dive into the full primary geography curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.