This activity
was
developed
to
give participants
an
understanding
of Earth’s
water
– how much exists,
what it’s like and where
it is found. n this oned hourd long
activity, students participate
in a demonstration showing the distribution and composition of water
on Earth.
Students also create
a map showing where freshwater is located on Earth
(in streams, ice packs,
wetlands, etc.).
Learning
Objectives:
• Explain how much water is on Earth
• Describe the forms and locations of water on Earth • Explain why it is important to know about our water resources
National Standards:
Core Idea ESS2.C: The
Roles of Water in Earth’s Surface
Processes
• Water continuously cycles among land, ocean, and atmosphere via transpiration, evaporation, condensation, and crystallization, and precipitation, as well as downhill flows on land. (MS-‐ESS-‐4) Core Idea ESS2.A: Earth Materials and Systems • All Earth processes are the result of energy flowing and matter cycling within and
among the planet’s systems. This energy is derived from the sun and Earth’s hot
interior. The energy
that flows and matter that cycles produces chemical and physical changes in Earth’s materials and living organisms. (MS-‐ESS2-‐b) (MS-‐ESS2-‐c)
Background Information:
Water is fundamental to life on Earth. Knowing where and how much rain or snow falls globally is vital to understanding how weather and climate impact both our environment and Earth’s water and energy
cycles,
including
effects on
agriculture, fresh water
availability and responses to natural disasters. The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, launching in 2014, will help scientist to better understand how much rain and snow
falls around the world.
1
Materials: Copies
of “Earth’s Water” student
capture sheets Crayons
– red, blue, green, gray 5 gallon
bucket Measuring
cup
(1/2 cup
and 2 cup
sizes) Ice cube tray Water dropper Globes or color maps of Earth
Engage:
Use the “Earth’s Water”
PowerPoint and ask students
to
answer
three riddles. (Slide
2 What do the answers all have in common? WATER!
Show the students a picture of Earth from
space. (Slide
3) Ask the students how much of Earth’s surface
is covered with water?
(About 70%). Ask the students to list what
they know
about
water
and
what they
would
like
to
learn
on the
KWL
chart.
Where
is water? What kinds
of water
exist in, on, or around
Earth? Why is water important?
Share
answers
with the class.
Explore:
Demonstration: Amounts of water on Earth
(adapted from http://ecosystems.psu.edu/youth/sftrc/lesson-‐plans/water/6-‐8/everywhere )
Show the students a 5-‐gallon
bucket filled with water.
This represents
all the water on Earth.
Ask students to make a prediction: of the 5 gallons of water, how much do you think is available
to
humans?
(If desired,
review
with students what
“available water”
would be: fresh, liquid able to be accessed from
surface water or aquifers.) (Slide
4)
Using the
5 gallon
bucket of water,
ask a student to come up and remove 2 cups of water. The bucket water
represents
salt water
(97%) and
the
2 cups represent fresh water
(3%) Move the bucket
to the side and focus on
the cups of freshwater. Ask another student
to remove ½ cup of water from
one of the 2 cups.
Pour the
other
1 ½ cups
into
an
ice cube
tray.
The 1½ cups of water
represents
freshwater
that is stored
as
ice in glaciers
and
polar
ice caps and is therefore not
available for our use.
The ½ cup of water is liquid water in the
ground, surface water (rivers, lakes), and water vapor in the atmosphere. Although it is
all freshwater,
it is not all clean and usable by humans. Pull out an eye dropper and ask a third
student to come up and hold her his/her hand.
Drop one drop of water
into
the
hand
– this one drop represents the amount of freshwater that is clean, and accessible to humans.
2
Explain:
Summarize this information on the student capture sheet. (Slide
5)
Explore:
World Water Distribution
Divide students
in groups
of four. Give each group a globe or map of the Earth. Give them
about five minutes to observe the Earth and distinguish between water and land. Discuss the observations as a class. (Slide
6) Show Slide 7 and discuss where we find water on
Earth.
Load the National Geographic fresh water interactive map (Slide
8
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/04/water/water-‐animation on a computer or projector for the class. Ask students to color and shade their world map outlines
according
to
where
the
water
is located.
First,
quickly
shade
or color
oceans
(salt water) red. We cannot
use this water.
Next, from
the NG map, color the permafrost areas gray. (Permafrost is ground that remains below freezing for several years. There is water in the soil but it remains frozen.) Also color the glacial and ice areas gray. Along with permafrost, all of this water is frozen.
Notice the glaciated area
and ice sheets as outlines along mountain tops. Next, color the wetland areas green. Prominent wetland areas typically occur along large river systems or where land stays saturated with water for long periods of time. Finally, shade
blue over the general
river and lake areas.
What
other water is on
Earth that
we haven’t
labeled?
Answer: Water vapor in
the atmosphere.
Remind students that although there is a lot of green and blue colored on our map (liquid fresh surface
water), less than
1% of all the water on
Earth is available for our use.
Evaluate:
Discuss
with
students:
(Slide
9) Why is Earth’s nickname “the water planet” both appropriate and misleading? Answer: 70% of Earth is water so it is appropriate. However
only about 3% is freshwater and less than 1% is freshwater that is available for animals and humans to use. Also, we cannot create more water, so it is misleading because there is not an unlimited amount of water available to us. List at least five
things you learned to complete the KWL chart we started at the beginning of class.
3
Elaborate/Extend: • Give students the numbers to create their own pie chart or bar graph of global water distribution. (Slide
10) http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html Examples: http://ga.water.usgs.gov http://pacificwater.org/pages.cfm/water-services/water-demand-management/ water-distribution/
Teacher Notes:
There are many ways to represent the amount of water on Earth and divide it up into smaller amounts to show the amount of available fresh water. Here we have demonstrated using
water from
a 5-‐gallon
bucket. Another method is to use 100 small objects and reduce them by percentages according to the estimate of water distribution on Earth. This lesson
from EPA has several examples http://www.epa.gov/region1/students/pdfs/ww_intro.pdf
Additional Resources:
• Helpful information, background, and resources about the GPM mission
and Precipitation
Education
http://pmm.nasa.gov/education/ • GPM freshwater availability classroom
lesson http://pmm.nasa.gov/education/lesson-‐plans/freshwater-‐availability-‐classroom-‐ activity • An Apple as the Planet http://nasawavelength.org/resource/nwd 000d 000d 002d 889/ • EPA lesson “All the water in the world” with various levels for grades K-‐6 http://www.epa.gov/region1/students/pdfs/ww_intro.pdf • USGS information about how much water is on Earth http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html • Penn State
“Water,
Water
Everywhere” Lesson http://ecosystems.psu.edu/youth/sftrc/lesson-‐plans/water/6-‐8/everywhere
