Lessons and Activities Reviewing the Water Cycle

This section is rather brief, as it is assumed students have been exposed to the water cycle in the past. The goal of this section is to provide a review for students, to activate their prior knowledge and prepare them to augment their existing knowledge of the water cycle with the resources found in Lessons and Activities Investigating Human Activities Impacting the Water Cycle.

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Observe a Raindrop Traveling Through Various Paths of the Water Cycle http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/content/visualizations/es0105/es0105page01.cfm?chapter_no=visualization

In this interactive resource, students move a raindrop through different parts of the water cycle. By clicking on an arrow, students can select where the raindrop in a cloud will fall as precipitation and continue to transfer the drop through different paths in the cycle. When students place their cursor over an arrow, two text boxes appear—one contains the name of the process and another supplies a short definition of it. Precipitation, sublimation, transpiration, infiltration, runoff, and melting are among the processes represented. MSP full record

The Water Cycle http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle.html

This interactive diagram of the water cycle invites students to click on a part of the cycle to get information about streamflow, surface runoff, freshwater storage, ground-water discharge, ground-water storage, infiltration, precipitation, snowmelt, runoff to streams, springs, condensation, evaporation, evapotranspiration, water in the atmosphere, ice and snow, and oceans. A summary of the water cycle on a single web page is also available as text with pictures in about 50 languages, text only in 13 languages, or diagram only. MSP full record

The Water Cycle http://www.epa.gov/safewater/kids/flash/flash_watercycle.html

This web site, developed by the Environmental Protection Agency, is divided into four interactive, animated graphic sections: rain, water storage, vapor, and clouds. Students can discover the forms of precipitation and why it occurs, the development of aquifers, transpiration, and condensation. This is a great web site for young students to grasp the connections between different forms of water. 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.