ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos


4th Grade Videos 155 videos

ELA 4: How Words Can Help
1205 Views

Sticks and stones, right? Well...only sometimes. It's a good idea to make sure your words aren't going to hurt others. Let's look at some ways to d...

ELA 4: Debating Like a Champ
744 Views

Learn to debate like a champ. It's way better than debating like a chimp. That just takes mudslinging to a whole new level.

ELA 4: Types of Biographies
277 Views

Today we'll learn about biographies and autobiographies. And no, the second one has nothing to do with the lives of cars. 

See All

Social Studies 4: Landforms 133 Views


Share It!


Description:

Today we're going to get your butte into gear and teach you all about land forms. Yes, including buttes.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:06

[Dino and Coop singing]

00:13

The United States of America is home to many things...

00:16

Ridiculously oversized hamburgers... [Girl with a huge hamburger at a restaurant]

00:19

Day of the Week underpants... [Guy wearing Tuesday pants]

00:20

And some of the craziest shopping malls in the entire world. [Shopping mall with a roller coaster in it]

00:24

It's also home to many different landforms.

00:26

The surface of the United States is covered by a diverse range of landforms – but the [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

00:30

most common ones you'd expect to see while traversing the Land of the Free are mountains,

00:35

plateaus and plains…oh my. [The different landforms popping up on a map of the US]

00:36

So… what do each of these landforms really look like?

00:40

The one that's easiest to picture is probably “mountains.” [Picture of mountains]

00:43

When we say mountains, we're referring to landforms that are high in elevation and come

00:47

to a point or a peak. [Dino pointing at a blackboard]

00:49

Y'know… a mountain.

00:50

Like any one of the Rocky Mountains seen here, which stretch from the top of British Columbia [The Rocky Mountains shown on a map]

00:55

in Canada all the way down to the state of New Mexico.

00:57

That’s a mountain range with some range.

01:00

Okay, so…what about a plateau?

01:02

A plateau is sort of like a mountain in that it, too, has an elevated surface. Unlike a

01:07

mountain, however, a plateau doesn't have a peak.

01:10

Instead, it has a wide, flat surface at the top, as seen here in the photo of the Colorado [A line is drawn to show the flat surface]

01:15

Plateau, which is over 130,000 square miles in size. [Sign for the Colorado Plateau shows the size]

01:19

Not as tough to climb, and much easier to play soccer on. [Someone kicks the soccer ball off the edge]

01:23

Last up is a plain, which… is probably the most boring of the three. [Plane flies over a plain]

01:26

Because while climbing Mount Everest is both impressive and daring, traversing the Great [Group of climbers in the snow]

01:30

Plains of North America doesn't require much more than a working car and a whole lot of patience. [Family in a car]

01:35

A plain, after all, refers simply to an area of the Earth that’s flat and often covered

01:40

in grass. Whoop-dee-doo. [Dino pointing at a blackboard]

01:42

But while plains, plateaus and mountains are the most common landforms in the USA, they're

01:46

not the only ones.

01:47

Here's another one:

01:48

No, it’s not what you think it is – although America is home to a lot of those, too. [Butte appears over the guy wearing Tuesday pants]

01:52

A butte is a smaller sized landform that stands alone and at higher elevations – but it

01:57

has a flat top like a plateau. [Picture of a butte with lines showing the general shape]

01:59

America is also home to many valleys. A valley is a flat land surface that’s sandwiched [Picture of a valley]

02:04

between two higher elevation forms, like plateaus or mountain ranges.

02:07

Canyons, meanwhile, are deep holes or valleys within the earth that often hug the rivers

02:12

that flow through them. Yeah, they can be a little clingy. [Guy in a boat at the bottom of a canyon]

02:15

There are also plenty of hills, which are like small mountains with rounded tops.

02:18

They also make perfect homes for hobbits. [Hobbit in his house]

02:20

Mountains, plateaus, plains, buttes, valleys, canyons and hills – just a handful of the

02:25

landforms that call America home.

02:26

Let's just be grateful that they aren’t actually found all in the same place.

02:30

If they were…well, good luck getting to and from school every day… [Girl leaves the house for school on top of a plateau]

Related Videos

ELA 4: How Words Can Help
1205 Views

Sticks and stones, right? Well...only sometimes. It's a good idea to make sure your words aren't going to hurt others. Let's look at some ways to d...

ELA 4: Debating Like a Champ
744 Views

Learn to debate like a champ. It's way better than debating like a chimp. That just takes mudslinging to a whole new level.

ELA 4: Types of Biographies
277 Views

Today we'll learn about biographies and autobiographies. And no, the second one has nothing to do with the lives of cars. 

ELA 4: Complete Sentences
775 Views

In this lesson we'll subject you to some verbs and predicates. Each one is a necessary part of a complete breakfas—er...sentence.

ELA 4: Word Choice
222 Views

Choosing words carefully is important. You may end up vexing the assemblage of citizens you're conversing with...or you might even just plain bore...