After School Program
Lesson Plans
Water Cycle Lesson – Project Wet
Concept Objective: Water Cycle and Water Conservation
Time: 40-45 minutes
Setting: Indoor
Activities: Drop in the Bucket, Water Cycle Drawing, Incredible
Journey
Materials Needed:
Various sized containers
Bucket
Eye Dropper
Plastic blow up earth
Large white Paper
Pencils, crayons, colored pencils
Incredible Journey Kit
Water
Procedure: Part 1: Drop in the Bucket (10-15 minutes)
1. Explain to the students that there is a lot of water on the earth, 70% of the earth is in
fact covered by water, but there isn’t that much fresh water available for people to use.
Discuss the fact that water is in many forms (refer to previous lesson about states of
water). Most of the earth’s water is locked up in the ocean, about 97%. The 3% of
remaining water can be divided in many ways.
2. Use the handout sheet with the script and numbers/percent of water uses to do the
activity.
3. Talk about some of the things that can be done to conserve fresh water.
Part 2: Incredible Journey (30-35 minutes)
1. Discuss what a water cycle is.
2. Have students make a drawing of their interpretation of a water cycle on a large sheet
of paper.
3. While they are drawing, set up the Incredible Journey kit. Talk about the many places
that water goes in nature, look around room.
4. Tell students they are going to become a water molecule and they can start at any
station. Have them go stand by a station.
5. Give each student a piece of yarn. Ask them to string one bead from their station onto
the yarn and secure at the end.
6. Then tell them they will be throwing the dice. Wherever it lands, that is the station they
will journey to next.
7. When they arrive at the station, they will string one of those beads onto their yarn and
then roll the dice (wait their turn if necessary). If the dice tells them to stay at that
station, they still string a bead on for that round.
8. Let the students “journey” for about 10-15 minutes. At the end of the time, have them
return to their seats.
9. Ask them to turn their water cycle drawing over and depict the journey they just took.
Set up the signs so they can match the colors to their beads. Discuss.