Land and Water
Lesson 6
Where Does the Water Go? Looking at Ground Water and Runoff
Students will use four different soil components and see how much water each material will hold. Students will then apply this knowledge to the stream table activity from previous lessons.
3. Lesson set up and Management
INQB: Scientists plan and conduct different kinds of investigations, depending on the questions they are trying to answer.
INQD: Investigations involve systematic collection and recording of relevant observations and data.
ES2A: Earth materials include solid rocks and soil, water, and gases of the atmosphere. Materials have different physical and chemical properties, which make them useful in different ways.
ES2E: Soils are often found in layers, with each layer having a different chemical composition and different physical properties.
- Students will observe differences in the amounts of water that different soils will hold.
3. Lesson set up and Management
Materials:
- Do not have the students carry the ¾ full cup of water on the tray. Have the student return to get the water or have another member of the group carry the cup with water.
- Clean-up: It may be helpful to have a tub with soapy water to put the dirty graduated cylinders into. Then the cylinders can soak. This is especially helpful for the cylinders that have clay.
- Students may have difficulties reading the 30ml graduated cups. Consider having students practice during a center prior to this lesson.
Student Management:
- Have each member of the group do steps 1-3. When each member of the group has completed their drawings and prediction (see teacher tip below), have each student in the group in charge of adding exactly 30ml of water to one of the soil components. Have each student record the total volume (step 4). Then have the group pass their cylinder to the person on their right. Continue to pass the graduated cylinders until each member of the team has had a chance to record the total volume. Have each student do step 6 with one of the soil components. The students may need to use the spoon, chopstick or their finger to "hold back" the earth material so it doesn’t pour into the 30ml graduated cup. This will depend on how tightly the students packed the materials in step 1.
- Step 5 and Step 7, remind the students to think about the different properties of the various earth materials.
- Glue the Record Sheet 6-A into the science notebooks.
- In the Background, they talk about the force of gravity being the reason the water flows. Gravity is very important to this model and to the reason erosion happens. Gravity is the force that has the rain fall to the Earth, but it is also the force that makes the water flow downhill.
- On Record Sheet 6-A have each student in the group in charge of getting exactly 20ml of an earth material. This will give you an opportunity to make sure each student knows how to use/read a graduated cylinder. It is helpful to have the different materials in 4 different locations throughout the classroom while the students are measuring out the exact amounts. This could be done as a center prior to the science activity.
- Procedure 1: Have the students write a prediction for the following investigative question, “What is the affect of adding 30 mL of water to the different earth material to the total volume of material in the graduated cylinder?” When students write their prediction they should include the type of earth material (changed variable) and the total volume (measured variable).
- On Record Sheet 6-A step 3, "Make a Prediction," on the first set on graduated cylinders on the sheet. Then in step 4, after waiting 5 minutes, have the students color the water area blue on the second set of graduated cylinders. Some students may get frustrated that their prediction wasn’t accurate. This is a good time to talk about scientists being intellectually honest.
- Clean-up: Have one group model how to clean up using Procedure 5. Have the rest of the class evaluate the group based on speed and neatness.
- Extension 3 could be done using the investigation process. The investigative question could be, “What is the affect of different earth materials on the amount of water needed to make the water level match the soil level?”
Reading Support:
- Read-aloud reading opportunity: Science Works: A Drop in the Ocean, The Story of Water by Jacqui Bailey. This book will provide some prior knowledge to the selection in Lesson 6, "Where Does Our Drinking Water Come From?"
- Read-aloud reading opportunity: The Magic School Bus: Wet All Over: A Book About the Water Cycle by Joanna Cole. This would be a great book to read to the students prior to reading the selection "Where Does Our Drinking Water Come From?" in Lesson 6. This book would also review the water cycle from Lesson 2 and provide students with prior knowledge before reading the selection.
- Have students read the selection "Where Does Our Drinking Water Come From?" Have students compare and contrast surface water with ground water. Make sure that students finish the contrast statements.
Math Support:
- Practice measuring with and reading graduated cylinders and 30 ml graduated cups.
- After answering question 7, have the students do a simple subtraction problem to find out how much water is still in the earth material.
- Record the data for the different earth materials from each of the groups. Display this information in a scatter plot or bar graph, or find the mean, median, mode and range for each of the earth materials
Last updated 07/08/2009