Investigating the Water Cycle
Earth ecoSTEM Kit Materials Used: Hubbard Scientific Water Cycle Model
ENGAGE - Students Observe This Phenomenon
GATHER
REASON
EXPLORE a Kit-Supported Learning Experience
Students will use the Hubbard Scientific Water Cycle Kit to create a working model of the water cycle, driven by the sun, including all three physical states of matter and changes of state (processes). Note: a heat lamp (or lamp with incandescent bulb) and ice are needed, per directions.
EVALUATE
Students should be able to draw and label the water cycle processes and identify the two major forces or factors that drive the cycle. (Hints: Without these forces, the processes would stop. What adds energy to the system and makes evaporation happen? What makes water flow downward?)
ELABORATE
Students should be able to identify all the processes in this different, unnarrated NASA phenomenon video.
This diagram from NOAA and this explainer video from NASA will introduce vocabulary for the processes, in context.
EXTEND
Students may view this video on the use of shade balls in a Los Angeles reservoir and then diagram how the balls disrupt the water cycle and limit chemical reactions in water treated with chloride. In addition, students may revise their cycle drawings to show anthropogenic impacts.
COMMUNICATE
Revised EXPLANATION
After making sense of a core idea by engaging in science or engineering practices through the lens of crosscutting concepts, students revise their original explanations of a phenomenon.
EMPOWERMENT
Students will design a tree planting project since tree roots reduce erosion and trees store water as part of the water cycle.