Overview
The hydrosphere surrounds all living things on Earth. Water is essential for all plants and animals to survive. The primary focus of this unit is to create an awareness of water, its uses, and to develop an understanding of its impact on life. The activities in this section explain:
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and out of the atmosphere plays an important role in determining climatic patterns. |
Background
information
Water evaporates from the surface of the earth, rises and cools, condenses into rain or snow, and falls again to the surface. The water falling on land collects in rivers and lakes, soil, and porous layers of rock, and much of it flows back into the ocean.
When young children first learn the process of water evaporation and condensation which are inherent to the water cycle, they often form an unrealistic view of the pattern that this process follows. The following activity helps children understand that the water cycle is not a continuous circular motion, but rather a cycle that varies in nature.
The picture below is called the Water Cycle. Let's try to describe what the picture means. Water is essential to all life and life activities. Plants and animals need water to survive. Water is found throughout the world. It is in the soil, underground, marshes, swamps, ponds, streams, rivers, lakes, glaciers, oceans, clouds, and precipitation. There is a continual movement of these elements as they travel from one part of the hydrosphere to another. This is called the Water Cycle.
Let's look at a pathway in the water cycle. Precipitation falls from clouds as rain or snow. It falls to the ground and flows into streams. The streams are part of a river system that brings water to the ocean. As rivers move toward the ocean they gain water from the many branches of the system. Once the water reaches the ocean it evaporates, returns to clouds, and condenses. It may return to earth as rain, sleet, hail, or snow. Then, the process can begin again.
Concept Introduction
PART 1
After learning about the water cycle, ask students to think of as many
places that water might be able to go when it falls to the earth. After
they form a list, the teacher should try to group these ideas into the
following nine categories.
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WATER |
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When the illustrations are finished, they are hung on the wall around the classroom and these will serve as the different stations for the next portion of this activity.
PART 2
Using the student-made posters, create nine stations to represent the
water cycle. Place a small, square box at each station to use as a random
number cube. (The teacher needs to make these nine cubes ahead of time
according to the directions found here.)
The children become the rain drops (water droplets) and are responsible for recording their own paths in the water cycle. It might be a good idea to have them predict beforehand where they think the water droplets will spend the most time. Each student has a piece of paper with the name of each of the stations (sample answer sheet). They are divided into 9 equal groups again and line up at each of the nine stations. They take turns rolling the cube at the station and they record where they go.
The activity continues with the water droplets (children) flowing around the room in the pattern of the water cycle and making tally marks as they go. After about 20 minutes, the teacher stops the flow of the water droplets and has them add up their tally marks for each station.
Child one starts at the glacier station. They make a tally mark by the glacier station on their paper. When the shake the dice, they might get "stay". They make another tally mark by the glacier station on their paper and go to the end of the line at the same station. When they get another turn, they might get "rivers", so they make a tally by the river station on their paper and go to the end of the line at the river station. |
A small group of students can then take these totals and enter them in a spreadsheet ( e.g., Microsoft Works, MS Word, Excel, Quatro Pro, or Clarisworks). From the spreadsheet, they can create graphs that will show them the percentage of time that the water droplets were at each station. (Variation: Students can calculate the averages using calculators and graph them in groups on poster paper.).
Concept Application
1. Ask students to find as many images of water as possible (either by searching magazines or WWW) to make a physical (or an electronic) collage. Ask students to look especially for pictures that show how living things depend on water. Display these and use them for class discussion.
2. Ask students, "What are some ways you used water today?" Emphasize that all life is connected to water.
3. Ask students, "What are some words that have something to do with water, including its important to people and wildlife?" (List about 100 words)
4. Students use water words to make word trees. Example: WATER Use the word trees to write poetic statements about water.
5.Students finish the sentence using their word tree. Water is ...
6. Make a Water Reflection Book by illustrating their poetic statements and binding them into a classroom book. This could also be made by using computer generated images in a program such as Kid Pix 2 and made into an electronic picture book or slide show.
Assessment Ideas
3-2-1 Assessment
Tell 3 ways plants or animals use water. Tell 2 ways to use water for recreation. Tell 1 way why water is important.
Portions of this activity are adapted with permission from Project Wet Curriculum and Activity Guide pgs. 191-195. © The Watercourse and Western Regional Environmental Education Council.(WREEC)
