What is the value of water?

The natural water cycle is a continuous loop of changing states of matter powered by the sun. Even though some are more “visible” than others, but if  we look closely enough, we can still find evidence of stages like evaporation in our environment.

Students will understand how the interaction between the natural water cycle and the natural watershed depends on gravity and topography,  everywhere and all the time.

Students will go outside for this part of the lesson to observe and document evidence of the water cycle in their own schoolyard.  Before they go outside, review the water cycle

Slides 3 and 4: Watch one of the Water Cycle videos to review the process, or use one of the diagrams.

Slide 5: Review the natural water cycle components

After reviewing the diagram or video, use Slide 5 to look at all the parts of the water cycle

Show the class  a google map of the school property to the sidewalk to include the building and schoolyard

Orient them to the map view of their school.  Before going outside, students can annotate the map based on what they might see on their walk  as a prediction .  (After their walk they will compare with what they actually saw on their walk)

Ask students what stages of the water cycle they might see outside? Where might they find evidence? Will they actually see evidence of each of all the stages or what is “left behind”?

Back in the classroom , revisit and annotate the google map based on actual observation,

Take students for a walk outside –Prepare a note-taking tool of your choice for them to use once outside.  This can be done in their notebooks, a two-column checklist, or whatever works well for them to be able to take notes outside and discuss and review back in the classroom after the outdoor portion.

If possible, just after a rainstorm but if it has not rained recently, take some water with you to pour on various surfaces and a tennis ball to demonstrate slope (that water wants to run downhill) . Examine what happens to the water and have a discussion about how water travels from a high spot to a low spot (there may even be a drain in your schoolyard) .

A tennis ball is a great way to show students how gravity  is at work in their schoolyard. Allowing the tennis ball to roll models how water moves through the schoolyard

Look for evidence of precipitation (rain) and condensation (clouds). Can they see evidence of infiltration (damp soil?) and ask students to mark their maps with their observed evidence.

Have students write down their observations using the vocabulary of the phases of the water cycle to make the connection to the real world.

Back in the classroom, review the four main components of the water cycle (condensation, precipitation, evaporation and runoff) As students describe what they observed, have them identify the stage of the water cycle their observation suggests. Review the related vocabulary as they complete their diagrams.

Here are some prompts to help guide the group discussion and connect back to the stages of the water cycle

• What did you predict? What did you observe? How did they compare?
• Did you look up? Were there clouds in the sky as evidence of “condensation”?
• Did you see any storm drains? Was any litter collected around it? Why?
• Did you observe any trees, plants, soil? (This would be considered pervious surfaces in that water can “infiltrate”
• Did you explore the Parking lot ? Play equipment? (If these are impervious surfaces, water will “runoff”

Discuss if there are any days that they experience a problem with water drainage in their schoolyard?

Talk to the building engineer to find out about problem areas on the schoolyard for flooding to start to get a sense of the impact?