Grade 4

Four systems, always connected

Land, water, air, living things. Part of looking closely.

Four systems, always connected

Land, water, air, living things · Alberta Grade 4 · maddyhelps.com

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For each event, tick every system it involves, then say how one of them affects another. There is always more than one — Alberta's outcome is the connections.

Event	Land	Water	Air	Living things
A spring flood Water spreads over the land and carries soil away.
A forest fire Trees burn, smoke fills the air, bare soil washes into streams.
A beaver dam Living things change a stream into a pond and a wetland.
A farmer ploughs a dry field Wind picks up the loose soil.

How one system affects another in the fire

One way people conserve water or soil

For the grown-up

Four systems, always connected

Flood: land, water, and living things whose homes are flooded. Fire: all four — trees burn, smoke goes into the air, and without roots holding it, soil washes into the water. Beaver dam: living things, water and land. Ploughed field: land, air (wind erosion) and living things (the farmer and the crop). Conserving: shelterbelts of trees, leaving stubble on fields, fixing leaks, shorter showers.

The dust storms of the 1930s on the prairies are the famous Alberta example of the last row, and shelterbelts and leaving stubble on fields are what farmers learnt from them.

Why this matters is on the looking closely page. More sheets