Landslide Lab
Students can name a landslide and still think a hill just falls one day. Landslide Lab lets them rain on a hillside at its true steepness, take away its roots or its toe, and watch the soil let go, then build a winter of snow and forecast the avalanches.
Using this with a class? Make a free class and add your students yourself: each gets a username and password, with no email or Google account needed. Or give them one join code. Using Google Classroom? Post the link there; with a free class, the link also puts each student in your class, so you see their work. mytekDev is also available from the Google Workspace Marketplace, so your school's Google admin can install it for everyone.A first lesson: One period on the hill: an ordinary storm, the big storm, then clear the trees on the hollow and rain again. A second period in winter: build a season, read the snow pit, and make a forecast that tomorrow checks.
Set up a free class Share to Google ClassroomWhat a student actually does
A forested hill rises above a road and a row of houses, drawn at its true steepness: a slope of 33 degrees looks like 33 degrees, because the angle is the lesson. The student presses Rain. Water soaks in, and a side cut in the corner of the screen shows a slice through the hill at true scale: the soil, the rock under it, the roots as deep as they reach, and the water table rising as a blue layer. Two arrows on the slip surface show the pull of the soil's weight down the slope and the grip that holds it. When the pull is bigger, it slides.
After the first storm the hill takes colors: green where it holds easily, yellow where it barely holds, red where it would slide. The hollow is closest, because water from the whole hill drains into it underground. The student clears the trees on the hollow, cuts the road deeper into the slope, or burns the hill, and rains again. A crack opens, the soil runs down the hollow, crosses the road and spreads on the flat, and a card gives how far it fell, how far it ran, its speed and how much soil moved. The land keeps the scar.
The tilt tray is the classroom lab: a tray of sand, gravel or soil raised until it slides, dry, damp, wet and soaked, with the angle where the first grains roll and the angle where it all goes. Winter is a mountain: the student builds a season from day cards (snowfall, clear nights, cold, wind, warm days, rain), reads the layers in a snow pit with a column test, watches slab avalanches run, and sends a skier up one of three routes. Forecast hands them a slope they have not seen, a few checks, and tomorrow to find out if they were right.
Day five of a winter: two days of heavy snow on top of buried frost feathers, and six slopes let go on their own. In the snow pit in the corner the weakest layer is outlined, under the newest snow, and the column test broke there at one tap. A day earlier nothing ran on its own, yet a skier crossing the bowl would have broken the buried frost.
What they are learning while they work
Nothing here is presented as a lesson. This is what the activity is made of.
| What the student does | What it is |
|---|---|
| Watches the hollow turn yellow in the big storm while the slopes beside it stay green | Water gathers in hollows. Rain that soaks in drains downhill through the soil, so the hollows fill with water first. Water between the grains pushes them apart and takes away their grip. |
| Clears the trees on the hollow and the same storm brings it down | Roots hold soil. Roots tie the soil together and to the rock, but only as deep as they reach. Once they rot, that grip is gone. |
| Raises dry, damp and soaked sand in the tray and gets three different angles | A little water helps, a lot hurts. Damp sand stands steeper than dry sand because a little water pulls the grains together. Soaked, the water pushes them apart and the sand flows. |
| Reads the two arrows in the side cut on a steep and a gentle spot | Pull against grip. A slope holds while the grip of friction, stickiness and roots is bigger than the pull of the weight along the slope. Steeper slopes pull harder. Geologists call the ratio the factor of safety. |
| Burns the hill and watches a short, very hard rain set off a debris flow | Fire and debris flows. Burned ground sheds rain instead of soaking it in. The runoff picks up ash, soil and rock as it runs down the hollow and grows into a debris flow. |
| Adds a clear night, then heavy snow, and sees the frost feathers buried in the pit | Weak layers in snow. A slab avalanche needs a slope steep enough, a slab, a weak layer under it, and a trigger. Buried frost feathers and sugary facets can stay weak for weeks. |
| Publishes a forecast and tomorrow shows it was too cautious | Forecasting and false alarms. A forecast is a call made with limited evidence. Calling the danger too low puts people at risk; calling it too high too often teaches people to ignore warnings. |
How to tell whether it landed
Ask, and let them show you. A student who has understood it can answer these without help.
- The same storm fell on the whole hill. Why did the hollow come closest to sliding?
- Damp sand stood steeper than dry sand, and soaked sand flowed. Why?
- What did the trees do for the hill, and why does logging matter years later?
- A slab avalanche needs four things. What are they?
- Who sets off most of the avalanches that catch people?
- Why might a forecaster who always warns of the worst be a bad forecaster?
Use it in your subject
Not a technology class? Then the app is how students show what they learned in your unit. More projects for every subject.
Middle school earth science
MS-ESS3-2 directly: data on a hazard, a forecast, and the technology that reduces it. MS-ESS2-2 names rapid landslides among the processes that change Earth's surface at different speeds.
Upper elementary
The tray and the hill at the grades 2 to 5 level, in words only: slope, plants and water as the things that change how land erodes (4-ESS2-1), and plants and walls that hold land in place (2-ESS2-1).
High school earth science and physics
The factor of safety with its numbers in kilopascals, the rain chart with Caine's and Guzzetti's thresholds, and forces on a slope (HS-ESS3-1 names mass wasting among natural hazards).
Homeschool and co-ops
The tilt tray is the one real experiment worth doing at the kitchen table beside it: a baking dish of sand, a protractor, and a spray bottle.
Practical notes
- AgesGrades 6 to 8 are the home ground, with degrees, meters and the danger scale. Grades 2 to 5 get words only. High school adds the factor of safety in kilopascals, typed storms, and the second threshold line on the rain chart.
- TimeOne period for the hill and the tray. A second for winter and a forecast.
- EquipmentA computer or Chromebook with a modern browser and 3D graphics. Nothing to install. A projector for Big screen. A printer if you want the sheet on paper.
- CostFree. The app has no paid tier.
- PrepRun it yourself first, about fifteen minutes: the ordinary storm, the big storm, then clear the hollow and rain again. In winter, play Snow, Clear night, Clear night, Heavy snow, Heavy snow.
- In a groupOpen Setup in the app's header: the level, whether each student gets forecasts of their own or everyone the same, how many checks a forecast allows, the sheet's questions, up to ten of your own, and a printed answer key.
For co-ops, microschools, and classrooms
Set it up once in Setup and hand the project out as the starter; the setup travels with it. With a free account the students' sheets come back to you as saved projects, with their answers, their slides and their forecasts.
Common questions
Is it free?
Yes. Landslide Lab has no paid tier, and it can be tried right on this page without an account.
Can students use it to judge a real slope?
No. The hill and the mountain are made up, and their numbers are the right size, not a forecast for any real place. To go into avalanche terrain, take an avalanche course, read the local avalanche forecast, and carry rescue gear with people trained to use it. The app says so in How it works.
Does it replace the real lab?
No. Do the tilt tray lab with real sand too: dry, damp and soaked. The app's tray is there to sit beside it and to add the materials and the water amounts a classroom cannot easily try.
Is the science accurate?
The balance is the infinite slope equation geologists use, the water in the soil follows how water drains through hillsides, and the snow strengths come from field measurements and the skier's load from a published study. Every number and every sentence a student reads was checked against sources. What is simplified on purpose is listed in How it works: one soil layer, the forest's roots set low in the measured range, and danger ratings from the app's own cutoffs.
What is in winter?
A mountain with a bowl, a gully and a forested spur. Seven kinds of day build the snowpack in layers; slab, loose and wet avalanches run on their own or under a skier; and the snow pit shows each layer with an Extended Column Test.
Does anyone get hurt in it?
No. Nobody is ever drawn in a slide. A slide can reach a house or close the road, and the avalanche card says, in one line, that most people caught in avalanches set them off themselves.
Does it run on Chromebooks?
Yes. It draws in 3D in the browser with nothing to install. Older Chromebooks run it more slowly, and slides always play at the same speed.
Still have a question? Ask us, and a person will write back.
Where to go next
Lesson plans
4 ready-to-teach class periods with a teacher plan, a student worksheet, an exit ticket with answers, and the standards it meets.
Start with Landslide Lab
Trying it costs nothing and takes about five minutes. An account is what makes the work last.
Landslide Lab is one of the making apps on the platform. Its stability colors always come with words and a legend, so color is never the only clue.
Page last reviewed November 2026.
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