Stream Tables
Small stream tables provide excellent in-class follow-up to a museum experience with a large stream table. Students gain knowledge about the effects of erosion by carrying out teacher-designed experiments and by creating their own experiments. Below are a few possibilities.

You will need:
Stream tables
Sand
Putty or clay
Buckets
Siphon tubing
Books or other objects for propping up the table
Paper towels
Plastic cups
Food coloring
Cotton swabs

Note!
Before doing any stream table experiments, I spent an afternoon familiarizing my students with the procedure for setting up and manipulating a stream table. We "played" with it to see what results we could come up with. The students especially enjoyed learning to work a siphon.

Trace the Path
After following the directions that come with a stream table for setting it up, put a few drops of food coloring on a cotton swab. As you introduce the water source, place the swab in its path. Diagram the path(s) of the water as shown by the food coloring.

Change the Slope
Keeping the water source consistent each time, record the effects of three different slopes: First prop one end of the stream table up on two books, then four, then six.

Water Volume
Keeping the slope consistent, change the water source. First diagram the effects of the siphon tube. Then poke holes in the bottom of a cup to make a "rain cup" and pour water into it. Finally add more holes to the cup to make a "storm cup".