WaterWise Preschool Ed Program - Water and Me

7/28/2019 WaterWise Preschool Ed Program - Water and Me

1/14

1.1Water & Me

Why do we need water?

What do we use it for?Where does it come from?

How does it get to the tap?

THE WATER CYCLE


2/14

Introduce the Topic: Water & Me

Water - where does it come from and why do we need it?

Familiarise the children with the topic by discussing as a group how

we use water and why we need it.

Some of the prompts for discussion can include:

w Talking about the importance of water for our health and hygiene.

w We drink it to keep our bodies hydrated and healthy

w We use it when we brush our teeth

w We use it to ush the toilet to keep it clean

w We have a bath and shower to wash our bodies

w We wash our clothes and dishes in it

Interactive 1

Using discussion and pictures talk about how water is used by people

around the world, animals and plants for survival, shelter, hygiene,

play. Ask the children to name some of the ways they use water at

home?

Classroom Activity:WE ALL USE WATER

Create a wall display by grouping pictures of living

things according to how they use water - aquatic

animals (shelter), plants (to grow), people (drinking,

washing, toilets, playing) etc.


3/14

The Water Cycle

Where does our water come from?

Talk about what happens when it rains and give a brief explanation of the water cycle

using the key words - evaporation, condensation and precipitation.

The Hastings water journey begins in the catchment when the clouds

burst and the rain falls.

The rainwater ows directly into the creeks and rivers and also soaks

into the earth creating ground water. The ground water trickles into the

creeks and rivers and helps to keep them owing, even during times of

drought.

The Hastings catchment stretches from the Mount Seaview Range

down the Hastings Valley through pockets of untouched forest, acrossour rural landscapes and through towns on its journey to the sea.

Graphic on CD


4/14

EvaporationEvaporation is when the sun heats up water in rivers or lakes or the

ocean and turns it into vapour or steam. The water vapour or steam

leaves the river, lake or ocean and goes into the air.

CondensationWater vapour in the air gets cold and changes back into liquid,

forming clouds.

Precipitation (Rain)Precipitation occurs when so much water has condensed that the air

cannot hold it anymore. The clouds get heavy and water falls back to

the earth in the form of rain, hail, sleet or snow.

Water - every living thing needs it to survive.

Water has been lling the clouds and falling back to

the Earth again as rain for millions of years. This is

called the water cycle.

There is no more water on the Earth today than therewas when life on Earth rst began. In fact, the water

we use today is the same water the dinosaurs drank.

Of all the water on Earth only 1% of it is fresh water

that is available for us to use. Around 97% is salt water

and another 2% is locked in ice caps and glaciers.

In the Hastings, the water journey begins when the

clouds burst and the rain falls.

The rain ows into the creeks and rivers and also

soaks into the earth creating ground water.The ground water trickles into the creeks and rivers

and helps to keep them owing, even during times of

drought.

Did you know:


5/14

WATER CYCLE ACTIVITIES

What you need - kettle, mirror

To demonstrate visually how the water cycle works, boil a

kettle and allow the steam to condense on the surface of a

mirror held above.

Explain that the kettle is a river, and when the sun heats up

the water it begins to evaporate.

The steam represents the water particles rising into the sky

(the mirror). The water then cools in the sky and turns back

into a liquid which is held in the clouds.

Explain how the clouds become so heavy with water, they

burst open and rain falls from the sky (as the droplets begin to

fall from the surface of the mirror).

The water then falls back to Earth, and the cycle starts again.

Misty Mirrors

Pour a puddle of water on to a sunny area

of concrete or a at surface and draw a

line around it with chalk.

Monitor the puddle and watch as the

water shrinks away from the sides of the

chalk and disappears.

When the water has evaporated, discuss

how heat causes evaporation and what

happens to water particles during this

process.

Disappearing Puddles


6/14

Whizzys Water Cycle in a Jar

Watch how the water cycle works

with Whizzy the Waterdrop


7/14

From Catchment to Tap

Discuss water storage and the journey from the dam to the

preschool tap. Where does the water come from when we turn

on the tap?

Explain how the dam lls up when it rains, and empties every

time we use water at home and preschool.

Show pictures of the Port Macquarie and Cowarra off-creek storage dams and

explain the journey of Whizzy the Waterdrop from a rain cloud, to our river, from

the pump station to the treatment plant, from the dam to our water reservoirs

and then through the pipes to our taps at home.

Graphic on CD

Interactive 2

Interactive 3


8/14

Outdoor Activity: PLAYGROUND PIPELINES

How does the water get from the river to our houses?

We worked together to find out.

1. Mason and Domi made a

river that led to our pumping

station.

We used blue cellophane as

water.

2. Dylan and Declan dug out thedam. The clean water is

pumped to the dam from the

pumping station.

Bronte and Declan laid down

our cellophane water in our

dam.

3. Kaleb, Dylan and James dug

out some sand ready for our

next pipes to be laid.

4. Elli laid down the pipes that

take the water from the dam to

the reservoir.

5. Eloise put in our reservoir

which stores our water ready to

use.

6. Eyria and Declan dug out

some room for the new pipes

which were laid by Zach!

These pipes will take our water

to our houses.

Now that we have finished,

Aidan and Jack can have adrink!


9/14

Print out pictures of a river, the ocean, the

sun, clouds, rain. Additionally you can print out

pictures of a dam, a reservoir, water pipes and atap.

Jumble up the pictures and ask the children if

they can sort them in order of the water cycle

and then how water travels from the river to the

tap.

When they have the pictures in order, discuss

the journey of a water drop from the momentit rains to when a tap is turned on at home.

Classroom Activity:WATER JOURNEY JUMBLE

Graphics for this activityare available on your CD

Reading ResourcesA comprehensive list of books

related to this topic area can be

found in the Teacher Resource

section of this program.


10/14

Making a Water Cycle

First Jack put in the rocks Then Siena added the sand

Ashton put in the soil for the plants Kaelan planted one plant

Then Ben planted the 2nd plantWe needed to add water so we can

watch the water cycle

We also needed to put the lid onto create the sky

We placed our cycle in the sun and

will observe it over the next few days towatch the evaporation, condensation

and precipitation.


11/14

This experiment is designed to

highlight the effects of filtration on

the cleanliness of our water supply.

MATERIALS:

Clear jars

Soil

Sand

Cheese cloth

or cotton cloth

Rubber bands

What To Do:

x Pour water into a clear jar

x Add some soil and stir

x Observe the clarity of the water

x Spread cloth over opening of another large jar. Hold in place with a

rubber band.

x Poor sand over top of cloth.

x Slowly poor the water with the soil through the sand and into the

clean jarx The water poured through the sand should be cleaner

than the water in the original jar.

DISCUSSION: Water sources and water cleanliness around

the world (Text: A Life Like Mine)


12/14

EXPERIMENT: HOW DO CLOUDS WORK?

x Each child was given a cloud (cotton

ball) and asked how it felt soft,

light, fluffy, smooth.

x Trays were filled with water to

represent a river.

x We placed the clouds into the water

and watched as the clouds filled with

water and became... cold, wet,

filled up, heavy.

x When the cloud was picked up out of

the water it was dripping. rain!

We discovered.x Evaporated water fills up the clouds.

x When the clouds get heavy with water it RAINS!x Water falls back into the rivers, streams, oceans and onto the ground for the

process to begin again.


13/14

Today we observed in a hands-on experiment the process of EVAPORATION!We joined with the Orange room to create our own water source the water puddle area

outside. We added some water to this and marked the boundaries with blue chalk so we

could see where the water line began.

FACT: Evaporation is when water changes from liquid to vapour. Evaporation

causes clothes to dry on the washing line and puddles to dry up after rain.

The empty puddle is filled with water and

marked for reference.

The children were very keen to see the

change in water level.

They kept checking the water puddle

for the change in level.

It slowly began to disappear!


14/14

Learning About the Water Cycle

Today we began to talk about Whizzy the Water

Drop and the water cycle. I asked the children

where does water come from... Rain, rain drops,tap, sea, waterfalls, lakes, ice, dams and clouds

Why do we need water? The children responded

So we can stay alive, to drink so we dont get

dehydrated, so we can keep our bodies still, for

baths, it makes you healthy, for showers, to water

our plants, to grow vegetables, to swim, for

animals

We learnt about the

water cycle and how

the sun heats water,

which rises and

forms clouds, as they

get heavy it falls as

rain.

During music we

were sailors

climbing the

mast and

crossing the

ropes.

We then did a

science experiment

to show the children

visually the water

cycle. The kettle was

the lake, the heat the

sun.

We enjoyed Row

Row Row Your

Boat with a

friend.

The children were

amazed when the

steam started to rise

showing evaporation.

The mirror was the

sky and as the

droplets formed it

began to rain.

And we sang

about rain, I

Hear Thunder

and Rain Is

Falling Down

WaterWise Preschool Ed Program - Water and Me

Documents

Transcript of WaterWise Preschool Ed Program - Water and Me