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Ari Raider's Training Materials · Extreme Earth · Training Center 3 of 6
Contour Lines
Half of Sparkle Slope has come down in a river of loose stone — and the safe way across is written on the map, in brown lines, for anyone who can read them.
What you're training for
On Sparkle Slope, the scree is still moving. Crossing safely means reading the contour lines: crowded means steep, spread means gentle. Train here first; prove it in the simulation.
The science
- A contour line joins points that are all the same height — walk along one and you never climb or descend.
- Lines crowded together mean the ground climbs fast: steep.
- Lines spread apart mean a gentle slope; closed rings mean you're looking at a hilltop from above.
- Hikers, pilots and rescue teams all read terrain this way — a flat sheet of paper carrying the full 3D shape of the land.
Teach it today — one potato
The sliced mountain. Cut a potato (or playdough mountain) into flat horizontal slices. Trace each slice on the same sheet, smallest inside largest — and a contour map of the mountain appears by itself. Then reverse it: hand out a contour map and ask which side of the hill they'd rather climb.
Trained and ready? Prove it at Stop 3 — Sparkle Slope. Free, no logins, progress saved on the device.
Enter the Realm at Stop 3Resources in this training center
Worksheets, reading passages, flashcards and printables for this lesson are being added — new resources land here first. Get one email a month when they do, or browse the whole free library.
The hands-on half: the Extreme Earth Adventure Kit puts six real specimens — chevron amethyst included — plus six Digs, six Gemlings and the Realm map in your students' hands. $19.99, or $15 a student for classrooms.
More Extreme Earth training
Map Symbols · Earth's Spheres · Contour Lines · Atmosphere Layers · Layers & Magnetism · Earth's Records · Enter the Adventure →