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Listed under:  Science  >  Life  >  Ecosystems  >  Biogeochemical cycles  >  Water cycle
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Catchment management: the story of a river

Water moves through the environment by the Water Cycle. This activity investigates the journey of a river through the catchment. It is part of a sequence of 5 individual learning activities designed to support understandings of catchment management. Follow water through the environment and explore the changes to water quality ...

Online

Every drop counts, being water wise!

This activity aims to explore water usage and water saving ideas. Every drop counts! OUTCOMES are for children to: understand the importance of water; look at ways to help save water; and undertake a water audit.

Downloadable

Water is special

In this lesson sequence, students explore what water is and how it behaves as it changes from ice to liquid water to water vapour. The purpose of this lesson sequence is to give students a mental picture of water molecules. Learning about how these molecules behave when water is heated and cooled can help them to understand ...

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Are we living sustainably?

This unit of eight lessons poses the question ‘Are we living sustainably?’ Students use prompts to draw on their prior knowledge to explain what they already know about sustainability. They then investigate why water is precious, explore how water is used around their school and at home. Students then research ways that ...

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Solar still activity

In this activity students create a solar still and use a predict-observe-explain strategy to investigate how coloured salty water transforms into clear unsalted water. This activity is useful for exploring changes of state (evaporation and condensation) and water cycles.

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Why is water sticky?

In this lesson sequence, students use a range of hands-on activities to explore what water is and how it behaves as it changes from ice to liquid water to water vapour. They explore the structure of water molecules and how these molecules behave when water is heated and cooled to help them to understand how the water cycle works.

Downloadable

How my water travels

In this lesson sequence, students explore what happens as water soaks into or runs over the ground. They gain an understanding of a catchment from a sandpit model that show how water moves across the landscape. Students then trace the journey that their water takes every day, from catchment or aquifer to tap.

Online

Exploring the story of water

Investigate the journey of water through the environment, from the mountains to the sea through an active demonstration. Discover and discuss changes to quality of the water on this journey through the environment? OUTCOMES of this learning activity are for students to: understand the journey of water from taps to the ocean; ...

Downloadable

Where does rain go?

In this activity, students explore what happens to rain falling on different surfaces.

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How much rain?

In this lesson sequence, students participate in a puzzle hunt in the school grounds to find letter clues that lead to the location of a special gift (a rain gauge) related to water. Students then make rain gauges and record rainfall in the school grounds with both the hand-made and commercial rain gauges.

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How is water used?

In this lesson, students investigate the variety of ways water is used by plants and humans in four workstation activities.

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How does water change?

In this lesson, students explore the properties of water using their senses. This activity is useful as a quick introduction to the topic

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Using Whizzy's storybooks

These lessons use a story-telling content and are designed to promote student understanding of why water is vital to living things, sources and uses of water, how water changes in the water cycle and why and how to use water wisely.

Interactive

Global change - iTunes app

Explores the global carbon and water cycles as well as the role that plants play in these cycles with particular emphasis on the stomata in the leaves. Also looks at human impact on these cycles and the climate. Includes videos, simulations showing changes over time, graphs, maps and a detailed glossary section. Free when ...

Interactive

Sites2See – water education

Resources and information on water as a human right, global water equality, water management and water consumption, with a range of teacher resources for water education.

Video

Food production in the Murray-Darling Basin

This thirteen and a half minute video highlights the importance of food and fibre production in the Murray Darling Basin. It explores the perspective of the farm families involved in both irrigated and dryland farming and explains how their products are distributed to local, national and global markets. This video also ...

Video

Returning water to Hattah Lakes

The two short videos in this series highlight the value of Hattah Lakes and the importance of ensuring that sufficient water replenishes the lakes during dry times. The videos explain how dams and weirs upstream store flood water that would otherwise fill the lakes. A collaborative engineering project reduced the environmental ...

Video

The water cycle in the Murray-Darling Basin

This 12 minute video explains the water cycle in the context of the Murray Darling Basin and the great variability in rainfall in the region causing frequent floods and droughts. It highlights the importance of the rivers in the Murray Darling Basin for agriculture, environmental health, water supply, habitat for migratory ...

Video

This Place: Birian Balunah - the birthing of the rivers

Paula Nihot shares a story told to her by Yugambeh Elder Patricia O’Connor. It's the story of Wanungara, queen of the mountains, and her daughters Princess Toolona and Princess Caningera, and how their complicated relationships and choices explain the geography of the region.

Video

Catalyst: Thinning ice sheet

Discover that that the massive ice sheet in East Antarctica has been losing mass since 2006 instead of growing, as was previously thought. Watch animations to see how scientists from NASA and Australia are using satellite technology and aerial monitoring to investigate the thickness of East Antarctica's ice sheet. Find ...