KeyStage

Key Stage 2 geography · Human and physical geography

KS2 mountains and how they form: a guide for parents

In Key Stage 2, children learn what mountains are, how they are formed over millions of years, where the world’s great ranges are, and how mountain weather and life are different from the lowlands. They also find the highest peaks in the UK and across the continents. This topic fits within the wider study of significant physical features of the world.

Mountains, explained

A mountain is a high, steep landform that rises well above the land around it. There is no single official height at which a hill becomes a mountain, but in the UK a height of around 600 metres (about 2,000 feet) is often used as a rule of thumb. Mountains are usually found in groups called ranges. Children learn the names and places of important ones: the Himalayas in Asia, the Andes in South America, the Rockies in North America, the Alps in Europe, and, closer to home, the Scottish Highlands, the Lake District hills and Snowdonia (Eryri) in Wales. Schools choose which ranges to focus on. They also learn the UK’s highest peaks: Ben Nevis in Scotland at 1,345 metres, Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) in Wales at 1,085 metres, and Scafell Pike in England at 978 metres.

The most commonly taught type is the fold mountain. The Earth’s crust is broken into huge slabs called tectonic plates, which move very slowly, a few centimetres a year. When two plates push towards each other, the rock between them is squeezed and crumples upwards into folds, a bit like a rug pushed across a floor. The Himalayas, the Alps and the Andes were formed this way over tens of millions of years, and some are still rising slowly today. Other types include volcanic mountains, built from erupted lava and ash, and block mountains, where a block of land is pushed up between large cracks in the crust called faults.

Once mountains have formed, weather and ice wear them down. Water freezes in cracks and splits the rock, rivers cut valleys, and in the past glaciers carved the steep-sided valleys and sharp peaks that we see in places such as the Lake District and Snowdonia. Mountains are also cold. The air gets thinner and cooler with height, roughly 6 or 7 degrees Celsius colder for every 1,000 metres climbed. This is why high peaks can be snowy even near the Equator, and why plants change with height until, above the tree line, only low plants and bare rock remain.

Children also learn about people. Mountains provide water for rivers, grazing for animals, minerals, timber and power from hydroelectric dams. They draw walkers, climbers and skiers, which creates jobs. Life is also harder: steep land, bad weather and poor roads make farming and travel difficult, and avalanches and landslides are real dangers. Mountain communities have found ways to adapt, for instance with terraced fields, or by moving animals to high pastures in summer.

Words your child will hear

Range
A long chain or group of mountains, such as the Alps or the Andes.
Summit
The highest point, or top, of a mountain.
Fold mountain
A mountain formed when two tectonic plates push together and crumple the rock into folds.
Tectonic plate
One of the huge slabs of rock that make up the Earth’s crust and move very slowly.
Altitude
How high a place is above sea level.
Tree line
The height above which it is too cold and windy for trees to grow.
Glacier
A slow-moving river of ice that can carve valleys out of mountains.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 2 says:

  • Pupils should be taught to describe and understand key aspects of physical geography, including: climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts, rivers, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes, and the water cycle
  • This will include the location and characteristics of a range of the world’s most significant human and physical features.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: modelling how fold mountains form

Use a model to explain how the Himalayas were formed, and explain what the model shows and where it falls short.

  1. Set up. Lay a tea towel or a thin rug flat on a table to stand for layers of rock. Put one hand at each end, flat on the cloth. Each hand is a tectonic plate.
  2. Push. Slowly slide your hands towards each other. The cloth bunches and rises in the middle into ridges and valleys. These are the folds.
  3. Link to the real thing. About 50 million years ago, the plate carrying India began pushing into the plate carrying Asia. The rock between them was squeezed upwards, and over a very long time it became the Himalayas, including Mount Everest, at about 8,849 metres the highest mountain in the world.
  4. Say where the model falls short. The cloth moves in seconds, but real plates move a few centimetres a year, so mountain building takes millions of years. Real rock is also much thicker and heavier, and it can break as well as fold.
  5. Add the weather. Ask what happens next: ice, rain and rivers wear the new mountains down at the same time, and glaciers carve their valleys.

Fold mountains form when two tectonic plates push towards each other and squeeze the rock between them upwards into folds, as with the Himalayas, where India’s plate is pushing into Asia’s. The cloth model shows the folding, but real mountain building happens very slowly, over millions of years.

Common mistakes and how to help

Thinking all mountains are volcanoes

Pictures of cone-shaped volcanic mountains such as Mount Fuji are memorable, and in cartoons mountains often erupt.

What helps: Compare a volcano with the Himalayas on a map. The Himalayas are fold mountains with no volcanoes at all. Some mountains are volcanic, but most ranges are not.

Thinking it is colder at the top because it is closer to the Sun

It seems logical that being higher should mean being nearer to the source of heat. In fact, a mountain’s height makes almost no difference to the huge distance from the Sun.

What helps: Explain that the Sun warms the ground, and the ground warms the air. Higher up the air is thinner and holds less heat, so it is colder. Use a hill walk to notice the change.

Believing mountains are fixed and never change

Mountains feel permanent next to a human lifetime.

What helps: Look at photographs of a glacier valley or a rockfall. Mountains rise and wear down very slowly, but they never stop changing.

Assuming that no one lives on mountains

Most images show snow and bare rock, with the people left out.

What helps: Find towns, farms and roads in the Alps or the Andes on a map, and ask how people there cope with the weather, steep slopes and the cold.

How to help at home

  • Cloth and clay. Repeat the folding model with a tea towel, then layer different coloured modelling clay, squeeze it from the sides, then cut through it with a piece of thread or a plastic modelling tool to see the folds inside.
  • Rank the peaks. Write down Ben Nevis, Snowdon and Scafell Pike with their heights, and ask your child to put them in order and say which country each is in. Then add Mount Everest and see how far it dwarfs them.
  • Spot the hills. If you visit hills or mountains with an adult, stay on marked paths and check the weather. Notice how the temperature, plants and wind change as you climb, and where the tree line would be.
  • Plan a mountain village. Ask your child to design a village high in the mountains. Where would the houses and fields go, what would people grow or do for work, and how would they travel?

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