Science Lesson Kit · Teacher Resource
The Water Cycle: Driven by Sunlight and Gravity — 5E Lesson Plan
Earth Science · 50 minutes
Grade 6
5E lesson flow
01
Engage
6 min
Teacher Does
Show a smaller puddle and cloud photograph.
Students Do
Explain where water may have gone.
Ask
- Can water disappear from Earth?
Look For
Changes in location or state.
02
Explore
13 min
Teacher Does
Provide landscape model and pathway cards.
Students Do
Build two possible journeys for the same precipitation.
Ask
- Can all water follow the same route?
Look For
Runoff, infiltration, storage.
03
Explain
11 min
Teacher Does
Teach solar energy, phase changes and gravity using landscape arrows.
Students Do
Explain each arrow using mechanism words.
Ask
- What drives evaporation? What drives runoff?
Look For
Correct process and driver.
04
Elaborate
12 min
Teacher Does
Show a flawed one-loop model.
Students Do
Find missing reservoirs and revise it.
Ask
- Where could water remain for years?
Look For
Stored water and varied timescales.
05
Evaluate
8 min
Teacher Does
Give independent valley worksheet.
Students Do
Draw paths and justify a revision.
Ask
- Which mechanism drives each arrow?
Look For
Accurate pathways and bounded conclusions.
Student goal
I can build a water-cycle model with more than one pathway and explain how the Sun and gravity help move water.
Learning objectives
- Model evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff, infiltration and plant transpiration with arrows and reservoirs.
- Explain where solar energy and gravity drive processes and where water changes state.
- Critique a one-loop water-cycle diagram and revise it to show storage and more than one possible pathway.
Materials
- Blank illustrated landscape sheets
- Blue arrows or string for path modeling
- Process word cards
- Water basin or closed clear container for a safe demonstration
- Worksheet
Before class
- Avoid calling visible steam 'water vapor'; emphasize that vapor is invisible.
- Prepare paths for ocean, atmosphere, stream, soil, groundwater and plants.
- Discuss a condensation demo only with safe conditions; no boiling-water student activities.
Prior knowledge
- Water can be solid, liquid or gas.
- Earth has oceans, lakes, land and atmosphere.
- Arrows in models should have a meaning.
Vocabulary
- evaporation
- Liquid water changes into water vapor as it gains energy.
- condensation
- Water vapor cools and changes into liquid droplets.
- precipitation
- Water falls from clouds as rain, snow or other forms.
- transpiration
- Plants release water vapor from their leaves.
- runoff
- Water moves over land toward lower places.
- infiltration
- Water soaks into the ground.
- reservoir
- A place where water can be stored for different lengths of time.
Differentiation
- Give process words and icons before students draw arrows.
- Allow oral explanations or pairs.
- Color-code solar-energy and gravity arrows.
- Challenge advanced learners to include freezing, melting and longer-term groundwater storage.
Assessment
- Accurate evaporation/condensation distinction.
- Sun and gravity correctly assigned.
- Two coherent water pathways.
- At least one model limitation identified.
Exit ticket
One drop of rain lands on a mountain: describe two possible next locations and identify which movements gravity drives.
Extension
Compare how rainfall, soil permeability and vegetation may change the balance between runoff and infiltration without saying water is destroyed.