Teaching about the distribution of water on Earth? I got you! We NEED water to survive, right? Our body is made somewhere roundabout 60% water, and we can only last a few days without water. We can go longer without food than we can without water.
Good thing that 71% of the world is covered with water, right? Well, not exactly. How is water on Earth distributed? 97% of that water is saltwater, and just 3% of it is freshwater. Even of that 3% water, most is located in icecaps. However, there is hope! There is water that is usable for drinking purposes in groundwater and other areas. We have to be careful to take care of it and treat it with respect.
There are some areas that have more usable water than others, and this is a great topic for students to explore. With all the numbers I mentioned above (there are more), students can get bored quick. That’s why it’s important to bring the WOW Factor to your classroom to keep them excited about learning.
In this post, I will share some introductory activities to start out this lesson about the distribution of water on Earth that will get your students WONDERing and intrinsically motivated to learn. Second, I will share an interactive lesson that will get your students thinking about the numbers and the importance of knowing this information while overcoming the overwhelm of it all. Finally, I will share some WIDEN activities to help your students show off what they already know and WIDEN their knowledge even more.
Which distribution of water on Earth ideas will you choose?
Introductory Activities for Distribution of Earth’s Water
If you have followed me for any amount of time, you’ll know that one of the things I believe is important to bring that WOW Factor is to have some type of activity or hook before you dive into the lesson. Well, it actually is the beginning of the lesson, but just really hooks them in. That’s a conversation for another day!
So, without me babbling on about that, let’s get into it. Here are two activities that you can try before teaching this topic. You can choose to do just one or try both!
Demonstrating the Amounts of Water on Earth
This is from NASA and the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission. You can find the whole lesson plan here, but I’ll just be discussing one part in this post.
You can find similar lessons to this online, but it’s great for students to get a visual of how much of our water is actually usable for humans.
You’ll need:
- a 5-gallon bucket
- water
- measuring cups (1/2 cups and 2 cups sizes)
- ice cube tray
- dropper
- Get a 5-gallon bucket full of water.
- Tell your students that it represents all of the water on Earth. Ask your students to predict how much of it is available for humans.
- Have a student volunteer to come up at take 2 cups out of the bucket. This will represent freshwater.
- Have another student volunteer come and take ½ cup of water from the 2 cups just taken out.
- For the 1 ½ cups that is left, pour it into an ice cube tray. This represents the freshwater that is stored in glaciers and icecaps (not available for use).
- With the ½ cup of water just taken out, it represents the “other freshwater”. This is groundwater, surface water, and water vapor in the atmosphere. Still, not all of this is clean and usable for us.
- Get another student volunteer. Have the student hold out his/her hand and use a dropper to drop 1 drop into their hand. THAT is the freshwater accessible to us!
After this, talk with their students and learn about their thoughts about this! Have them to describe the distribution of water on Earth.
“Hot Seat” Map of the Distribution of World Water
Here is a way to introduce that there are different amounts of freshwater resources around the world.
So, here’s how this goes.
- Place one student volunteer in the middle of the room, the front of the room, or just in a location where everyone can see him/her but cannot see what he/she is holding.
- Print out this freshwater resources per capita map (in color) and give to the student in the “hot seat”.
- This student is now the expert on this topic!
- Other students are tasked to pose questions for the student.
This is a way to spark discussion in your students. You can pose questions too to make sure that this activity goes in the direction you’d like it to go!
Distribution of Water on the Earth Surface Interactive Lesson
Now that your students have a bit of an idea about the distribution of water on the Earth and the scarcity of freshwater, especially in certain locations, it’s now time to dive a little deeper into the lesson.
This interactive lesson is the perfect thing! Interactive lessons were created using researched-based strategies to keep students engaged in the content without getting overwhelmed using the 7 steps to help students retain information.
This particular Distribution of Water Lesson covers so many things including distribution of land and water on Earth in percentage, a distribution of water on Earth pie chart, Earth’s spheres, sources of saltwater, sources of freshwater, and SO much more.
There are embedded activities to give students a chance to process the information without getting overwhelmed. Some activities include exploring outside resources, true/false questions, answering critical thinking questions, a Venn Diagram, four corners vocabulary, and more!
Skip the distribution of water on Earth worksheet and try this! It’s like a distribution of water on Earth PPT, but it’s so much more than that!
The students are sure to love it. This can be found on the site or on TPT.
Distribution of Water on Earth WIDEN Activities
At this point, your students are rockstars and know so much about this topic, and now is their opportunity to shine and show off what they know and widen their knowledge even more! Here are two activities for you to choose from to widen student knowledge if time allows.
Distribution of Water RAFT
I love a RAFT assignment. Students have fun with this if you get the right pairing of things. It could be silly, but it can also be serious. It’s a great way to incorporate more writing in the classroom.
If you have never heard of a RAFT assignment, this is what it stands for.
- R: Role – What is the author’s purpose? Who is the author of this piece?
- A: Audience: Who is the author speaking too?
- F: Format: What format is this piece written in? Is it a letter? A diary entry? Something else?
- T: Topic: What is this writing piece about?
Here’s an example for this topic that you can use, or you can make your own.
R: Freshwater on the Earth
A: A Human
F: Advertisement Poster
T: A Few Things You Should Know
STEM – Desalination Project
Looking for something that will help students build their problem-solving skills and more? Try this!
In the lesson, students learned about desalination, which is the removal of salt from seawater. This helps to make the water usable for human use.
What happens if students were stranded on an island and the only water available was ocean water? How would they survive?
Give the students the task to design a water desalination device. You can choose for them to just create a blueprint, or you can actually have them to try to make something that could remove dissolved salts from water! It could get expensive, so make the best decision for your classroom.
Have your students to research and get designing!
Here is an example from Science Buddies on how to create a solar-powered water desalination device.
Help your students master science content!
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