I like watching the expressions when people first see the canyon. In a way, I get to relive seeing it for the first time. We arrived at the Canyon later in the evening on Monday, tired from the drive up from Phoenix, as well as explorations along the way in the desert heat. We first set eyes on the Canyon right as the sun was starting to set. The vastness of the Canyon is so hard to explain in words, so here are some numbers: the Canyon is 10 miles across in most places, but up to 18 miles across in some. That is somewhere around the length of a half marathon. It is one mile deep in most places. The numbers don't do it justice either. It is breathtaking.
We hiked a little ways into the Canyon on the Bright Angel Trail, then resorted to watching the sun set - the colors change so much as the light changes.
On Tuesday I got up early to see the sun rise over the Canyon, then went to a fossil walk led by a NPS Ranger. Watching her explain what can be challenging geological processes to such a wide range of audience led me to some take-always. Teachers, or I, at least, could learn a lot by the hands-on, simple demonstrations that National Park Staff give to engage their audiences. She demonstrated the conditions necessary for fossils to form and be found: rapid burial, pressure, mineral deposits, uplift, and erosion (mostly water in the case of the Grand Canyon). All of these were demonstrated using a trilobite fossil replica and the dirt on the ground. My challenge is that this only takes the audience to a certain level of content; for my classroom, it is necessary to dive deeper.
One of the questions I've always had about the G.C. is why it is so much grander, larger and more intense than any other canyon. NPS staff use an acronym to help visitors remember the processes that formed the Canyon; D.U.D.E., or deposition, uplift, down cutting and erosion. The rocks of the Canyon are particularly vulnerable to erosion as they are soft sandstone and limestones. Each layer formed tells a story of the environmental conditions of that time (in some cases sand dunes, and tropical oceans in others).
I am left with still other questions: why were the conditions so different? Where was the continent during each of these times? What defines the edges of the Colorado Plateau (why doesn't it extend further North or South, East or West)? One question, however, will likely be the driving questions in a future class: why do we not find dinosaur fossils in the Grand Canyon, when they are found in other parts of Arizona? I am excited for my students to explore this question, because in order to form a possible answer they will have to have an understanding of the timeline of the Grand Canyon's layers and its plate interactions. Though NPS can speculate about why this is the case, they don't say for sure. This makes this question even more attractive as a driving question: students have to find evidence that supports their answer, but they really have to take ownership of their ideas...it isn't something that they will necessarily find in a textbook.
We hiked a little ways into the Canyon on the Bright Angel Trail, then resorted to watching the sun set - the colors change so much as the light changes.
On Tuesday I got up early to see the sun rise over the Canyon, then went to a fossil walk led by a NPS Ranger. Watching her explain what can be challenging geological processes to such a wide range of audience led me to some take-always. Teachers, or I, at least, could learn a lot by the hands-on, simple demonstrations that National Park Staff give to engage their audiences. She demonstrated the conditions necessary for fossils to form and be found: rapid burial, pressure, mineral deposits, uplift, and erosion (mostly water in the case of the Grand Canyon). All of these were demonstrated using a trilobite fossil replica and the dirt on the ground. My challenge is that this only takes the audience to a certain level of content; for my classroom, it is necessary to dive deeper.
One of the questions I've always had about the G.C. is why it is so much grander, larger and more intense than any other canyon. NPS staff use an acronym to help visitors remember the processes that formed the Canyon; D.U.D.E., or deposition, uplift, down cutting and erosion. The rocks of the Canyon are particularly vulnerable to erosion as they are soft sandstone and limestones. Each layer formed tells a story of the environmental conditions of that time (in some cases sand dunes, and tropical oceans in others).
I am left with still other questions: why were the conditions so different? Where was the continent during each of these times? What defines the edges of the Colorado Plateau (why doesn't it extend further North or South, East or West)? One question, however, will likely be the driving questions in a future class: why do we not find dinosaur fossils in the Grand Canyon, when they are found in other parts of Arizona? I am excited for my students to explore this question, because in order to form a possible answer they will have to have an understanding of the timeline of the Grand Canyon's layers and its plate interactions. Though NPS can speculate about why this is the case, they don't say for sure. This makes this question even more attractive as a driving question: students have to find evidence that supports their answer, but they really have to take ownership of their ideas...it isn't something that they will necessarily find in a textbook.