Students learn about the techniques engineers have developed for changing ocean water into drinking water, including thermal and membrane desalination. They begin by reviewing the components of the natural water cycle. They see how filters, evaporation and/or condensation can be components of engineering desalination processes. They learn how processes can be viewed as systems, with unique objects, inputs, components and outputs, and sketch their own system diagrams to describe their own desalination plant designs.

This activity is a field investigation of puddles where students gather data and record their findings.

This guided inquiry investigation will show students how water moves through the water cycle, and how it affects plant life.

The USGS gives an overview of the amount of water on Earth and where it is located. It gives a few interesting facts about the Earth's supply of water. Click Home to access the site in Spanish.

An in-depth explanation of the Earth's water cycle, including a hyperlinked diagram that provides direct access to information about each phase in the cycle.

A quick summary of the water cycle that includes a diagram of the cycle, with links to in-depth explanations of each component of the cycle. Click "water-cycle home" to access water-cycle resources in a variety of languages.

Find out how much of the water on Earth is actually usable by humans, and where the rest of it is located. Learn where our water comes from and why it never runs out. Click Home to access the site in Spanish.

Animation and text explain the water--or hydrologic--cycle, which is the process that water undergoes in nature.

Water is the source of life on earth. It exists in many forms and is constantly changing. The circulation and conservation of earth's water is called the hydrologic (or water) cycle. Find out how water evaporates, condensates, precipitates, transpires, and is transported around the earth.

Engineers design and implement many creative techniques for managing stormwater at its sources in order to improve and restore the hydrology and water quality of developed sites to pre-development conditions. Through the two lessons in this unit, students are introduced to green infrastructure (GI) and low-impact development (LID) technologies, including green roofs and vegetative walls, bioretention or rain gardens, bioswales, planter boxes, permeable pavement, urban tree canopies, rainwater harvesting, downspout disconnection, green streets and alleys, and green parking. Student teams take on the role of stormwater engineers through five associated activities. They first model the water cycle, and then measure transpiration rates and compare native plant species. They investigate the differences in infiltration rates and storage capacities between several types of planting media before designing their own media mixes to meet design criteria. Then they design and test their own pervious pavement mix combinations. In the culminating activity, teams bring together all the concepts as well as many of the materials from the previous activities in order to create and install personal rain gardens. The unit prepares the students and teachers to take on the design and installation of bigger rain garden projects to manage stormwater at their school campuses, homes and communities.

This animation from NASA visualizes the steps of the water cycle, including precipitation, evaporation, transpiration, and condensation. [0:52]

This activity is an introduction to the water cycle where students will use observation, drawing, writing, recording, questioning, and communication to understand the concept of condensation.

Students collect a large set of data (approximately 60 sets) of individual student’s water use and learn how to use spreadsheets to graph the data and find mean, median, mode, and range. They compared their findings to the national average of water use per person per day and use it to evaluate how much water a municipality would need in the event of a recovery from a water shutdown. This analysis activity introduces students to the concept of central tendencies and how to use spreadsheets to find them.

Students learn about the importance of dams by watching a video that presents historical and current information on dams, as well as descriptions of global water resources and the hydrologic cycle. Students also learn about different types of dams, all designed to resist the forces on dams. (If the free, 15-minute "Water and Dams in Today's World" video cannot be obtained in time, the lesson can still be taught. See the Additional Multimedia Support section for how to obtain the DVD or VHS videotape, or a PowerPoint presentation with similar content [also attached].)

Students build a model of a watershed, apply water to the model, and explore what happens when elements of the watershed are changed.

This activity is a class activity where students gather information of the water cycle, weather and seasons by doing a lab and game that enforces the concepts of the water cycle.

Students will test the percolation rates of 6 different soil samples. Three of the samples are measured sand and clay and three are collected from the schoolyard and wetland.

Students learn about the Earth's water cycle, especially about evaporation. Once a dam is constructed, its reservoir becomes a part of the region's natural hydrologic cycle by receiving precipitation, storing runoff water and evaporating water. Although almost impossible to see, and not as familiar to most people as precipitation, evaporation plays a critical role in the hydrologic cycle, and is especially of interest to engineers designing new dams and reservoirs, such as those that Splash Engineering is designing for Thirsty County.

This short demonstration will open students' eyes to the distribution of various water sources on our Earth, but also the limited amount of fresh water for our daily use.