The Watershed

This lesson plan is for Grade 6.

Goals

  1. Illustrate the continual movement of water within a watershed

Objectives

  1. Illustrate how water moves through a watershed.
  2. Show how pollution can be transported through the watershed via  rainwater
  3. Discuss the various types of geography that shape watersheds
  4. Discuss how human impacts affect and alter watersheds

Prerequisites

  1. *Lesson 4 on the water cycle, basic geography, water quality

Benchmarks (Hawaii)

  • 6.3.1
  • 6.6.2
  • 6.1

Materials

  1. Large brown paper bags
  2. Medium sized objects to support the bags (shoeboxes, rubber ball, cone, etc.)
  3. Spray bottles (1 per group)
  4. Food coloring
  5. Tape
  6. Newspaper
  7. Paper towels

Lesson Description

This activity should be completed in small groups.

Start by challenging kids to think about rain and snow, the precipitation they are familiar with. By now the class should have covered the water cycle, but turn the kids’ focus to where the water goes when it falls to earth. What are the parts of the watershed? Encourage them to think creatively about the life of a single raindrop.

For the demonstration, first lay down newspaper to absorb some of the water. The groups will tear the brown paper bags and use them to construct a mountain range (use the various “base” items to support the paper mountain). Using tape and various props, the kids can create their own watershed. Encourage some students to make watersheds resembling tall mountains, and others to make valleys or plains (whatever they wish). Each group should label the parts of their watershed, including where they think the rainwater will go. Where will rivers form? Where will the oceans be?

Each student in the group should then take a turn with the spray bottle. Before it “rains” on the mountain, have the group discuss where the rain will fall and where it will go. (NOTE: The teacher can incorporate geography lessons here on the topic of rain shadows, the effects of mountains on weather patterns, etc. This is especially pertinent here in Hawaii, and groups can discuss “windward” and “leeward” coasts and the weather patterns exhibited by these areas). Groups then test their hypotheses. Each student can make it rain in a different area by spraying the paper bag. The runoff patterns should be noted.

After the rainfall portion of the experiment, the teacher can add “pollution” to the watershed by adding a few drops of food coloring to some location along the drainage pattern of the watershed. Discuss what forms of pollution this might be (feel free to have students present ideas about the nature and origin of the pollution, and tailor it to their specific watershed that they have created). How can this pollution move through the system? Have it “rain” again and see if the pollution finds its way into the rivers and ocean of the group watersheds. Discuss how this pollution would impact the drinking water of the imaginary communities, as well as the environmental impacts it would have.

Resources

  1. The Watershed Game (http://www.bellmuseum.org/distancelearning/watershed/watershed2.html) –You get to make the call on how to manage your watershed!
  2. Watershed Academy – teacher resources (http://www.epa.gov/watertrain/)
  3. Various lessons and topics in water science (http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/edsci.htm#water)
  4. Ocean Pollution and the Water Cycle (http://www.learningdemo.com/noaa/) (NOAA) – Animated 10-minute lessons on Ocean pollution (#13) and the water cycle (#7)