Discipline: Environmental Science and Watershed Science
Age Range: 7-12
Estimated Time: 10-20 minutes
What You Need: A blue washable marker; a sheet of parchment paper or aluminum foil (roughly 10” x 10”); and a spray bottle filled with water
Instructions:
Crumple your parchment paper or aluminum foil into a loose ball.
Un-crumple your parchment paper or foil, but don’t smooth out all of the bumps and wrinkles. Lay the paper or foil in front of you on a table or tray. This wrinkly paper or foil represents an area of land. Notice the mountains and valleys.
Imagine that it is about to rain on your area of land. Where do you think the water will flow? Where will it end up? Use your blue washable marker to trace where you think the water will go on your paper or foil.
Let’s make it rain! Make sure your paper or foil is on a surface that can get a little wet (a table with a placemat or a cookie sheet are great options). Hold your spray bottle about 8-to-12 inches above your area of land. Spray the bottle a few times, creating an even mist over the whole area of land. Keep spraying until the water begins to flow.
What did you notice when it rained on your area of land? Did the water go where you predicted it would?
You have just created a model of a watershed. A watershed is an area of land where all the water drains to a certain place. This even includes water that is underground! Because of gravity, water always flows downhill from high areas to low areas. Everything on that land is also inside the watershed. In fact, you live in a watershed too! All land is divided into watersheds, based on where the water that falls on that place flows and drains.
Click here to find out in which watershed region you live.
NGSS Standards: SEP: Developing & using models; CC: Systems & system models, Patterns, Energy & matter; DCI: ESS 2: Earth’s systems