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What Goes Around Comes Around: The Water Cycle

Lessons and Activities about the Properties of Water

In this section, the goal is to introduce students to properties of water. However, you may choose to skip it if you feel your students are not cognitively ready. Due to the abstract nature of the water molecule and bonding, students will need a great deal of scaffolding to come to a conceptual understanding of the water molecule and its properties.

Approaches to support students in their learning may include exposing them to several different representations, from 2-D schematic drawings and animations to 3-D physical models and the human simulation described in Background Information for Teachers. Students should then be able to construct an understanding of the properties of the water molecule, which you can assess in a number of ways. For example, you could have students create their own drawings or build their own 3-D models alone or collaboratively with labels and explanations. The resources in this section focus on the 2-D images and animations.


Hydrogen Bonds Animation
http://programs.northlandcollege.edu/biology/Biology1111/animations/hydrogenbonds.html
Digital Library at OSU

This color animation of water molecules interacting and forming hydrogen bonds is a hybrid between a PowerPoint slide show and an animation. Students can replay portions or click next if they do not need to replay a segment. MSP full record


Water Properties
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/waterproperties.html
Geotechnical, Rock & Water Digital Library (GROW)

A simple description of the chemical and physical properties of water produced by the U.S. Geological Survey. MSP full record


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Copyright July 2007 — The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0424671. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Creative Commons License