Grade 9 · Social Studies · Unit 3 of 11
Weather, Climate & Landscape
How Canada's physical processes work
What your child practises
Weathering, erosion and deposition, glaciation, plate tectonics, what shapes climate (ocean, mountains, latitude, elevation), patterns of hazards such as tornadoes and floods, and global systems such as the jet stream and El Niño.
Ontario Curriculum expectation: B1.2, B1.3, B1.4 · geological, hydrological and climatic processes, and patterns and trends in weather and global physical systems
Sample questions
A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.
Question 1
A city's average temperature is 22 °C in July and −13 °C in January. What is the annual temperature range, in °C?
answer box°C
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35 °C
Hint: Range = highest − lowest = 22 − (−13) = 35 °C.
Question 2
Air cools about 6.5 °C for every 1 000 m of elevation. A valley is 18 °C. About what is the temperature on a peak 2000 m higher, in °C?
answer box°C
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5 °C
Hint: Drop = 2 × 6.5 = 13 °C, so 18 − 13 = 5 °C.
Question 3
During the last ice age, huge ice sheets covered much of Canada. What did they do to the land?
- built volcanoes
- made the land flatter by melting only
- scraped and carved it, and left deposits behind
- dried up all rivers
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scraped and carved it, and left deposits behind
Hint: Glaciers carved valleys and basins and left moraines and other deposits.
Question 4
Snowbelts near Georgian Bay and Lake Huron get heavy snow because…
- there is no wind
- the lakes are frozen solid
- the Rockies force air upward
- cold air picks up moisture as it crosses the warmer lake water
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cold air picks up moisture as it crosses the warmer lake water
Hint: Lake-effect snow falls downwind of large lakes in late fall and early winter.
Question 5
The jet stream is…
- a type of cloud
- a river in Ontario
- an ocean current
- a fast current of air high in the atmosphere that steers weather systems
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a fast current of air high in the atmosphere that steers weather systems
Hint: Its path decides which regions get storms or dry spells.
Question 6
Where the cold Labrador Current meets the warm Gulf Stream off Newfoundland, there are often…
- earthquakes
- fog and rich fishing grounds
- deserts
- tornadoes
Show answer
fog and rich fishing grounds
Hint: Mixing waters bring nutrients up, so fish feed there.