Activity Overview: For most people, water is all around us. Open the faucet and water flows into the sink immediately. This activity is about widening the view of where water comes from by looking at sources of water outside of the built environment.

Time: 30 minutes

Materials:

• maps
• atlases
• digital maps (printed or projected)
• rulers
• paper
• writing utensils

Procedure:

Ask students if they see any bodies of water in their natural environment. Do they pass a river or lake on the way to school? Do they have a stream running through their backyard? Do they go to a lake or the beach on vacation? Or do they live in a dry place with very few or no bodies of water?

Use maps, atlases, or digital tools like Google Maps to find your school. Zoom out or examine the map until you find a body of water. How far is it from your school? Is it freshwater or saltwater?

Pick another place, such as a big global city or a small town you or one of your students knows. Repeat the mapping exercise to find that place’s closest source of water. Which place is closer to water? Which one is farther?

Extend:

Ask students to create a map of one of the places they know. Is it their neighborhood? The school? The home of a family member? Or a place they know from visiting on vacation? Ask them to include any bodies of water on their maps.

Additional Resource:

Watch the following video from the PBS and Amazon Prime documentary series Power Trip: The Story of Energy.