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Click on the link below and explore the many features of a river system
Click on the link below to answer questions about the different phases of a river
Upper river courses (youthful stage)
A river begins life high in the hills or mountains. In a cold region, a river may be created by melting snow or a ______. In warmer places, rivers typically form when water drains from a whole series of upland slopes known as a basin. Water drains from each slope to form a small trickle called a ______. Rills from many slopes combine to form brooks, which join together to make ______(small streams) and larger streams, before all these things eventually merge into a river. The brooks, streams, and creeks that form a river are called its ______. Flowing down from high hills and mountains, the upper part (or course) of a river is usually narrow, steep, and marked by sharp valleys and abrupt, zig-zag changes of direction. The steepness means the water flows ______, often forming dramatic features such as white-water rapids and ______(great for canoeists). Rapid flow means the water has high energy to cut through rocks, wearing away deposits in a process called ______.
Middle river courses (mature stage)
As rivers leave the hills and mountains where they're created, they take on the classic pattern of the mature rivers we see in the landscapes around us. They're ______, ______, less ______, and change course more ______. The features they form are bigger and more substantial: wider lakes, wandering S-shaped bends called ______, and deeper, broader cuts in the landscape called valleys. Sometimes two rivers will join together at a point called a confluence. Sediment carved from the upper reaches of the river and carried downstream can build banks called ______that keep the water level ______than the landscape around it. When flows are high, water spills over the banks carrying mud and sediment with it and creating marshy ______. As rivers cross floodplains, they snake from side to side eroding the landscape in some places and building it up other places through a process called ______. Rivers are often surrounded by lush grassland areas called meadows.
Lower river courses (old-age stage)
There are no strict boundaries between the upper, middle, and lower courses of a river, and many middle-course features (like ______) are also found in the lowest reaches of a river. But the lower course of a river is less steep again than the middle course and the water runs even more ______. Rivers finally reach the sea at ______(wide, deep, open river mouths) and triangular-shaped ______(where a river deposits sediment at its mouth creating many narrower channels called distributaries instead of a single, wide mouth).
Click on the following video clip
All it takes to turn a straight stretch of river into a bendy one is a little ______and a lot of ______. (:30)
It keeps accumulating until the edge of the stream becomes ______on the inside bank (1:19)
The wider the stream the ______it takes the sling-shotting current to reach the other side. (1:35)
So little tiny meandering streams tend to look just like miniature versions of their ______relatives. (1:55)
As long as nothing gets in the way of a river’s meandering, its curves will continue to ______. (2:01)
When that happens, the river follows the straighter path, leaving behind a crescent-shaped remnant called an ______. (2:09)
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