The water cycle is taught at so many grade levels! In middle school, you are required to teach the water cycle with transpiration and all of the other steps! I’m pretty sure at our school, we teach the water cycle in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade!! All hitting it a little differently.
I mean, why not? Your body is made of mostly water, and 75% of the Earth is made of water. It’s SUPER important, and it’s amazing how it cycles throughout our world.
It’s also amazing how the water cycle works with other cycles and systems in our world. Including the human body systems!
You can really bring the WOW Factor to your science classroom teaching the water cycle!
Water Cycle With, Transpiration, Precipitation, Condensation, Evaporation, And More!
What is the water cycle? Water gets recycled in our atmosphere and on the Earth. This process happens all the time and is endless. There are many different processes that occur to make this happen. It is driven by the sun, and then many other processes can happen. Here are some that need to be taught in middle school.
- Evaporation: water goes from liquid to gas
- Transpiration: evaporation from plant leaves
- Condensation: water goes from gas to liquid
- Precipitation: rain, freezing rain, snow, sleet, hail
- Sublimation: water goes from solid to gas
- Deposition: water goes from gas to solid
- Surface runoff: water that flows over land surface
- Infiltration: water soaks into the soil
- Groundwater storage: water is stored underground
- Freshwater storage: freshwater that is on Earth’s surface
There are many steps and processes to cover in a middle school classroom, and they can be SO fun to teach. Here are just a few ideas you can take to the classroom.
Water Cycle Activities for Middle School
Diagram Water Cycle
Just having your students to draw a water cycle diagram could be so powerful. Students have an opportunity to see the water cycle stages in another visual form. Of course, you can do labs another other activities to show students what evaporation and condensation look like. They can also see precipitation happening in real life. They are able to easily connect but having another model of a water cycle to see these processes in a different way can help to better make connections.
In my classroom, I had my students draw a water cycle with transpiration and more and create a water cycle poster. It was so AWESOME to see what they could come up with. They came up with wonderful water cycle pictures!
Here are example instructions and a rubric that you can take to your classroom and watch the creativity flow!
Water Cycle Poster
Instructions: Using what you have learned about the water cycle, create a poster to display in the classroom. You can refer to your notes on the water cycle and resources you find online. Draw and label the water cycle starting from any point that you wish.
- Your Name and Title of Poster (5 points)
- Pathways of Water (60 points) – You must include all of the following pathways with labels and explanations.
- Evaporation
- Transpiration
- Condensation
- Precipitation
- Sublimation
- Deposition
- Surface runoff
- Infiltration
- Groundwater storage
- Freshwater storage
- Pictures of Important Parts of the Cycle (25 points)
The Sun
Clouds
Mountains, hills, trees (at least 2)
Lakes, streams, and oceans (at least 2)
- Neat and colorful (10 points)
Gallery Walk
Gallery walks are a great way to introduce science topics that allow students to get out of their seats and have fun with learning, and the water cycle gallery walk is no exception!
In this gallery walk, students are given a recording sheet with spaces for parts of the water cycle, a short definition, function, fun facts, and a picture.
Students can walk around the room, gallery walk style, and view posters of each step of the water cycle and fill in their charts.
Students can work alone, in partners, or in teams to complete their recording sheet. After students complete this, it could be a class work assignment, or students can glue the recording sheet into their interactive notebook.
I love gallery walks because they really gives students a chance to take ownership of their learning and to work on their own pace. If students work in teams/partners, they can work on their own pace, while working on their collaboration skills.
These also work great as a bulletin board idea!
Water Cycle in a Bag
This was one of my favorite activities to do in the classroom, and it was SO much fun! It’s been a fun activity to do for several years.
For reference, you can check out my ANCIENT blog post on this topic. An oldie but a goodie!
When I first started this activity, I showed this video to my students, and paused as needed. It’s super simple and easy to follow!
Here are the steps:
- Pass out zip-lock bags and pour water in them.
- Go around with the food coloring and put some in the bags. You can allow your students to do this. Just be careful!
- As you are doing steps 1 and 2, you can have students help you to tape bags to the window. Only allow a few students at a time to the windows.
- As the bags sit on the window, have students to answer the following questions in their lab notebooks.
- What do you think is going to happen to your water cycle? Write a hypothesis.
- Draw a picture to represent your hypothesis.
- Explain the reasoning behind your hypothesis.
- Observe the bags later or the next day.
- Watch the end of the video and compare class bags to the videos.
Digital Interactive Lesson
I LOVE DIGITAL INTERACTIVE LESSONS. In fact, I’m working to create a lesson for each topic in middle school science. They are great for reducing cognitive load and helping your students apply the information they learn in chunks.
The water cycle interactive lesson includes information about all of the steps of the water cycle listed above and have several embedded activities to help students show what they have learned.
Activities include: a drag and drop to label a water cycle diagram, a pre-assessment anticipation guide, answering thought-provoking questions, a Venn diagram, a vocabulary match, writing a short story, and more!
It’s one of my favorites!
More Resources on Teaching the Water Cycle with Transpiration and More!
Check out these resources!
The Fundamentals of the Water Cycle
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