1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on our Partners In Learning site.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location. And if you are using Windows 8, you can also use the Bing apps to learn more about this location and topic; the Travel and News apps in particular make great teaching tools.
Nell Bang-Jensen is a teacher and theater artist living in Philadelphia, PA. Her passion for arts education has led her to a variety of roles including developing curriculum for Philadelphia Young Playwrights and teaching at numerous theaters and schools around the city. She works with playwrights from ages four to ninety on developing new work and is especially interested in alternative literacies and theater for social change. A graduate of Swarthmore College, she currently works in the Artistic Department of the Wilma Theater and, in addition to teaching, is a freelance actor and dramaturg. In 2011, Nell was named a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and spent her fellowship year traveling to seven countries studying how people get their names.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: Reading: Informational Text
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.3 Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.5 Use text features and search tools (e.g., key words, sidebars, hyperlinks) to locate information relevant to a given topic efficiently.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.7 Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur).

2. What kind of canyon would you classify Zion Canyon as and what does this tell us about how it formed?
© Shutterstock
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. What kind of canyon would you classify Zion Canyon as and what does this tell us about how it formed?
The North Fork of the Virgin River flows south through southern Utah, eventually joining with the East Fork on its way to Lake Mead in Nevada. The waters of the river cut a deep gorge in the landscape that we call Zion Canyon. With the arid landscape surrounding it, the banks of the North Fork can seem out of place, with an abundance of flora not found in the landscape beyond Zion Canyon.
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. What kind of canyon would you classify Zion Canyon as and what does this tell us about how it formed? 1
Thinking/Web Search
Based on the description of Zion Canyon, what further research would you want to do about its formation? What terms or concepts might be helpful to consider? 2
Image Search
Find pictures of different canyons around the world. What do you notice that they have in common? 3
Web Search
What is a slot canyon? How is it created? How is it different from another type of canyon? 4
What is a submarine canyon? How do we know that Zion Canyon is not a submarine canyon? 5
Why are canyons often located near rivers?
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. What kind of canyon would you classify Zion Canyon as and what does this tell us about how it formed? 5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. What kind of canyon would you classify Zion Canyon as and what does this tell us about how it formed? 1
Thinking/Web Search
Based on the description of Zion Canyon, what further research would you want to do about its formation? What terms or concepts might be helpful to consider? 2
Image Search
Find pictures of different canyons around the world. What do you notice that they have in common? 3
Web Search
What is a slot canyon? How is it created? How is it different from another type of canyon? 4
What is a submarine canyon? How do we know that Zion Canyon is not a submarine canyon? 5
Why are canyons often located near rivers?
You can ask the students verbally or let one of them come up and insert the answer or show how they got it. This way, you also have a record that you can keep as a class and share with parents, others.

7. What kind of canyon would you classify Zion Canyon as and what does this tell us about how it formed? 1
Thinking/Web Search
Based on the description of Zion Canyon, what further research would you want to do about its formation? What terms or concepts might be helpful to consider?
(Possible queries: “what is a gorge?”, “how do rivers cut rock?”, “what is erosion?”).
Students should familiarize themselves with the description of Zion Canyon and think about what words clue them into how it formed. For example, they may want to look up the definition of a gorge or concepts surrounding how it’s possible for water to “cut” rock . They should create their own list of possible queries similar to the one above.

8. What kind of canyon would you classify Zion Canyon as and what does this tell us about how it formed? 2
Image Search
Find pictures of different canyons around the world. What do you notice that they have in common?
(Possible queries: “Bing/Images: canyon”, “Bing/Images: canyon examples”).
From and
Answers will vary. For example, in the images above, students may notice that parts of the canyons have a plateau shape. They might observe the water running through several of these canyons as well. They should notice that, overall, canyons appear to be hollowed out rock formations that create space in the in-betweens.

9. What kind of canyon would you classify Zion Canyon as and what does this tell us about how it formed? 3
Web Search
What is a slot canyon? How is it created? How is it different from another type of canyon?
(Possible queries: “what is a slot canyon?”, “types of canons”).
From
Slot canyons and plateau canyons are the main types of canyon formations. Both came into existence because of "uplift" and erosion working together. Uplift is a very slow upward movement of large pieces of the Earth's crust. The only difference between these two canyons is the amount and speed of the waters passing through the area. Rushing waters from a river erode the flat land-forming plateau canyons. Slot canyons are harder to find. On the surface, a slot canyon is only a thin line on the plateau. The top is hardly open and the beauty of the canyon is underground. Flash floods are responsible for the formation of the slot canyon. In dry climates, the ground cannot absorb water and it rushes over the sandy ground. The water leaves as quickly as it comes.

10. What kind of canyon would you classify Zion Canyon as and what does this tell us about how it formed? 4
Web Search
What is a submarine canyon? How do we know that Zion Canyon is not a submarine canyon?
(Possible queries: “what is a submarine canyon?”, “types of canyons”).
From
The ocean has its own canyons. Submarine canyons are not unlike canyons on land, but they are cut into the ocean floor by currents. Some of these begin at a shore where a canyon river runs into the sea. The river continues to cut its canyon when it reaches into the ocean. Other submarine canyons are cut by particle-filled currents that plunge to the ocean floor.
Based on this description, students should understand that we know Zion Canyon isn’t a submarine canyon, because submarine canyons are underwater.

11. What kind of canyon would you classify Zion Canyon as and what does this tell us about how it formed? 5
Web Search
Why are canyons often located near rivers?
(Possible queries: “how do canyons form?”, “why are there rivers near canyons?”).
From
A canyon or gorge is a deep ravine between pairs of escarpments or cliffs and is most often carved from the landscape by the erosive activity of a river over geologic timescales. Rivers have a natural tendency to cut through underlying surfaces so will eventually wear away rock layers to lessen their own pitch slowing their waters; given enough time, their bottoms will gradually reach a baseline elevation—which is the same elevation as the body of water it will eventually drain into. This action, when the river source and mouth are at much different base elevations will form a canyon, particularly through regions where softer rock layers are intermingled with harder layers more resistant to weathering.

12. What kind of canyon would you classify Zion Canyon as and what does this tell us about how it formed?
Students should pull together the information gathered to classify Zion Canyon as a plateau canyon. They should understand that all canyons are formed from the erosive activity of rivers over a large period of time, however, they differ in terms of how they were created. Some canyons, including the Zion Canyon, are created over a large scale of time when a river source and mouth of a river are at different elevations (in this case the North Fork of the Virgin River and the East Fork on its way to Lake Mead), whereas others are formed by flash floods and create a slot canyon. Submarine canyons exist underwater.