Water Cycle
Water Cycle
Water Cycle
Skills:
• Read and listen to acquire facts and ideas from texts.
• Gather and organize information about environmental phenomena.
• Write to interpret, apply, and transmit information.
• Write for literary response and expression.
Duration:
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Activity time: 15 minutes for reading; 30-45 minutes for writing
The water cycle is powered by solar energy and gravity. Water evaporates into the
atmosphere as water vapor. This gas then condenses into droplets that gravity pulls
down to earth as precipitation and downhill back to the oceans as runoff. Some
precipitation infiltrates the ground and becomes groundwater. It may stay there for
millions of years, or bubble up in springs, or be taken up by plants and released back to
the air through transpiration from their leaves. Water may also be frozen for
centuries in snowpacks or glaciers before melting and rejoining the cycle.
There is about as much water on earth today as there was in the time of the dinosaurs.
The water you drink today could have been in a waterhole used by dinosaurs, or frozen
in the great glaciers that covered the Hudson Valley 20,000 years ago.
Activity:
1. Introduce the lesson by telling students they will take a journey with Walter the
water molecule. They will frolic in the ocean, float into the atmosphere, splash down
on tree tops, slip between the leaves on the forest floor, and rush over waterfalls.
2. Read the story aloud. Point out how Walter’s adventures relate to the water cycle.
Use attached diagram and water cycle vocabulary if appropriate to grade level.
3. Have students write their own stories about Walter’s further adventures in the
water cycle (see introduction to the assignment at the end of the reading). Specify
a length depending on the abilities of the students.
Assessment:
• Collect and review students’ stories or have the stories read aloud to the class.
• Have students identify the states of water that they encounter daily (liquid in
puddles; water vapor from your breath; ice in ice cubes).
• Ask students to identify water cycle processes that Walter experienced.
Resources:
• Berger, Melvin and Gilda. Water, Water Everywhere. A Discovery Readers Book:
Ideals Children’s Books, Nashville: 2003. Appropriate for ages 5-9.
• Locker, Thomas. Water Dance. Voyager Books, NY: 2002. Appropriate for ages 4-8.
• McKinney, Barbara. A Drop Around the World. Dawn Publications, Nevada City,
California: 1998. Appropriate for ages 4-8.
• River of Words is an annual international poetry and art contest for K-12 students
on the theme of watersheds. Visit their website, www.riverofwords.org, for more
information about the contest and an interdisciplinary watersheds curriculum guide.
• In the Hudson Valley, NYSDEC’s Stony Kill Farm Environmental Education Center
offers River of Words watershed poetry lessons for grades 3-12 as well as Project
WET teacher trainings. Email skfarm@gw.dec.state.ny.us or call 845-831-8780.
horizon: the line where the earth or sea seems to meet the sky
molecule: the smallest particle of a substance that has all the characteristics
of the substance
scales: small flat plates that form an outer covering on the body of some
animals
tides: the alternate rising and falling of the surface of the ocean
In this illustration of the water cycle, precipitation falls to earth (1) and enters
streams flowing seaward as runoff (2) or infiltrates into the ground (3). Groundwater
feeds streams and lakes and is taken up by plants (4), from which it transpires into
the atmosphere as water vapor. Evaporation from the sea (5) and other surface
waters also supplies water vapor to the atmosphere. There, the vapor condenses to
form clouds (6) and eventually falls to earth again as precipitation.
Illustration from Stanne et al, The Hudson: An Illustrated Guide to the
Living River, used by permission of Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.
precipitation: water falling from the sky as rain, snow, hail, or sleet
runoff: water, from rain or melting snow, that flows over the ground
transpire: to give off vapor through the outer covering of a living thing
Walter reaches the peak of another wave. “Hang on! Here we go again!”
But this time the water molecules don’t hang together. The warm sunlight
gives them a boost of energy, and each goes flying off like a balloon set
loose. Walter is now part of a wild party of molecules in the air—oxygen,
carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and other water molecules—rising higher and
higher into the atmosphere.
The winds take Walter to the west. Floating in the sky, Walter looks
down at a beach, where the waves he rode a while ago pound against the
sand. He is way up now, far above towns, ballfields, and roads. Looking ahead,
he can see a range of mountains approaching—the Catskills, overlooking a
broad river valley.
The winds carry Walter higher as they reach the Catskills. It is getting
colder now, and Walter and his buddies have lost some of the energy they
had earlier. He and a few others rest against a particle of dust floating
Lulled by the lazy current, Walter is about to take a nap when a large
dark shadow looms up before him. Next thing he knows, Walter is sucked
into the gaping mouth of a fish—a big carp. Before he has time to blink,
Walter is pushed past the carp’s red gills and back into the creek. Three
feet of golden scales and fins slip by as the great fish swims on.
It takes time to answer this question. Drifting south for six hours, then
north for the next six hours, Walter doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. But
as days pass, he notices that he always drifts further going south than he
does going north. Eventually, at a place where steep mountains crowd up
against the river, he starts to see more salt molecules. Their number
increases each day as he drifts further south towards the Atlantic Ocean.
Reaching a great city, with tall buildings lining the river’s shores, Walter
knows the ocean isn’t far away. He can’t believe that seahorses and flounder
are now swimming past him.
Sure enough, in a few more days land is far behind. The tall buildings
disappear over the horizon. Walter is back among ocean waves, sparkling in
the bright sun. He is just starting to wonder what his next adventure might
be when a huge shape appears under him. It’s bigger—much, much bigger—
than the carp in Catskill Creek. Just as Walter realizes he’s on top of a
whale, the great animal exhales. Its spout blasts him upwards, and he finds
himself floating in the air again. But this time, the wind is blowing him east,
heading out over the Atlantic. “Maybe I’ll make it to Europe,” Walter says to
himself, settling in for the ride.
Walter has had many adventures. You have heard only a few of them here. He has
been sucked up by tree roots and pulled high into the tips of tall trees. He’s
journeyed from reservoirs to kitchen sinks, and through thirsty fifth graders. He’s
been underground, flowing through tiny cracks in bedrock and then bubbling up in
springs. He’s been frozen in glacial ice for thousands of years (Brrr and Bor-ing!).