Free Reading Passage: Fast Changes to the Earth's Surface PDF

Volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides and tsunamis can reshape land in minutes, and this free reading passage on fast changes to the Earth's surface shows how for grades 3–5. Part 1 contrasts slow changes such as weathering and glaciers with fast ones, then follows magma rising from a magma chamber, with a labeled volcano cross-section. Part 2 covers earthquakes and seismographs, landslides and sinkholes, and tsunamis. A fact box ends the passage with four real events, from the Parícutin volcano growing in a Mexican cornfield in 1943 to the 2011 tsunami that reached California.

Three question pages follow. Students answer five multiple-choice questions and two text-evidence questions, then sort eight Earth changes as fast or slow and explain one slow change. A cause-and-effect match and a word-clue task practice magma, lava, fault, landslide and tsunami. On the last page students correct four sentences that each contain a science mistake, then decide which fast change would be most dangerous where they live.

• Grades 3–5: earth science reading
• Six pages: two passage pages, three question pages and a one-page answer key
• Free download: color PDF and print-friendly black-and-white PDF