Water Cycle Journey Activity

Goal: Follow one water droplet through Earth’s reservoirs, identify the processes that move it and what drives them, and compare how long water stays in each place.

Open the explorer at earthsciencelab.org/tools/water-cycle/ · Connects to NGSS MS-ESS2-4, 5-ESS2-2

What to do

1. Open the Water Cycle Explorer. Keep the climate on Today, with the sun’s energy and gravity switched on.
2. Start the droplet in the ocean and type 10 as the chance code.
3. Press Let chance decide 6 times. For each move, record the place the droplet left, how it moved, and the typical time it spent there.
4. Answer the questions. Use the Where is Earth’s water? view for question 3.

Record your results

After 6 moves the droplet is in: ______________ Total time: about ________ years

Questions

1. In which place did your droplet spend the most time? Why does water stay there so long?

2. Sort the processes on your journey: which were powered by the sun’s energy, and which by gravity?

3. About what percent of Earth’s water is in the ocean? What percent is fresh? Where is most of the fresh water?

4. Try Colder and Warmer. When a droplet leaves the air, how does the chance of snow on a glacier change? What would happen to sea level in a much colder climate?

5. Thought experiment: switch off the sun’s energy, start the droplet in the soil and let chance decide until it stops. Where does it end up, and why?

6. In this model, which place holds a droplet the longest on average, and which the shortest?

Free from Earth Science Lab · earthsciencelab.org · MS-ESS2-4: Develop a model to describe how water cycles through Earth’s systems, driven by energy from the sun and the force of gravity. 5-ESS2-2: Describe and graph the amounts and percentages of salt water and fresh water in Earth’s reservoirs as evidence of how water is distributed on Earth.