The Water Cycle Mini Unit Resources

The Water Cycle Mini Unit for NGSS MS ESS2-4

We begin this unit with the resource students are most familiar with:  Water!  

In The Water Cycle mini unit, students track their personal water use and research where their local water comes from.  Then, they build their own personal water cycle using everyday materials. Extension activities challenge students to develop, build and test a self-contained water filtering system to clean dirty water.

Make it Relevant:  Focus on where your local comes from to make the science of the water cycle relevant for students.  For example, St. Paul Regional Water Services in Minnesota has a video and interactive Story to follow the path local drinking water takes from the Mississippi River to a faucet in a student's home.

Tips and Tricks:  Start collecting recycled containers of all shapes and sizes for students to build their own models of the water cycle for the summative assessment:  Trays and large bins to hold entire models, smaller plastic containers to represent lakes and ponds.  You’ll also need sand and/or rocks to represent land, foil and plastic wrap to work as an atmosphere, and a heat source.

To make “dirty” water to filter for the engineering project, we recommend a good dose of sand mixed with coffee grounds!  If you do add soil, be prepared for some funky smelling water as bacteria grow.

Anchor Phenomenon Ideas:  Find a local article about recent droughts, review the rainfall data for your area over the past few decades, invite a local farmer (in person or virtually) to talk about how the lack of rain has impacted their crops or review the National Drought Website (NIDIS).  After reading, analyzing and/or listening, use the questions your students come up with to make connections throughout your water cycle unit.