Knowledge and Skills Statement
Earth and space. The student knows that the natural world includes earth materials that can be observed in systems and processes.
Demonstrated Proficiency
Have students fold a piece of paper to create six boxes. In each box, students should label and draw the water sources listed in the student expectation. For each water source, students should find an image that represents that water source and record the color, clarity, general size, shape, and whether it is fresh or salt water. Students should be able to describe the clarity of a body of water as clear or cloudy. The shape of a body of water can be described as round or long. When describing the shape of oceans, students might explain that they don't know the shape because it is too big to classify as one shape. They may describe the edges as curvy or straight depending on the map they are using to explore ocean shapes. In general, students may describe oceans as made of salt water and other water sources as made of fresh water. Students should know that not all lakes are freshwater and that they would need to look at data to determine whether or not a lake is made of salt or freshwater.
Supporting Information
Research
Lange, Alissa. “Water Play Is Science.” Science and Children 59, no. 4 (2022): 10–11. .
www.nsta.org/science-and-children/science-and-children-marchapril-2022/water-play-science.
Summary: This article describes how children are innately curious about water and how encouraging play with water can help them better understand its properties. The article provides an activity that asks students to use a scientific approach in finding and describing their observations of water in multiple locations outside. Through this observation, students can make connections about the various properties of water.