Distribution of Water on Earth– Freshwater, Saltwater, and Beyond for 5th Grade NGSS

Water! It is such an important piece of our ecological puzzle here on Earth, and it has many effects that our students need to be aware of. 

When thinking about NGSS Standard 5-ESS2-2, students need to be aware of the various saltwater and freshwater reservoirs around our globe. The core concept is that the vast majority of water is in our oceans, but there are many other places to find water.

🚰 Thinking about water is best done with our students by introducing them to a phenomenon. 5th graders are around water constantly (hello cling-clanging water bottles), but it’s common for our students to be unaware of just how little of our water supply is available for drinking.

Here’s how you can teach your students about water distribution on Earth with our phenomena-based unit!

ENGAGE

Students begin this unit with a short video asking them to observe water in various states of matter and places that are familiar and possibly unfamiliar to them. As we observe and discuss, the video ends with our Unit Question: Why is such a small percentage of water available to drink? We make a claim on our CER Chart (Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning) with the plan that we’ll be watching for evidence to collect over the next few class periods.

During this 10-day unit, students are exploring concepts of where water can be found, viewing and creating water distribution graphs, and understanding how human impacts such as pollution affect our water supply.

EXPLORE

As a class, we brainstorm the places we know of where we can find water. Students often think of things like lakes, glaciers, and other bodies of water. I have found that they need explanations and pictures for groundwater collections, and your students might need some encouragement to remember that water is in our atmosphere as well! You might even get some answers like a cenote, which adds richness to the diversity of our classrooms.

As we do this learning, we are adding evidence to our CER Chart.

EXPLAIN

Now that our students have the background knowledge and working definitions of where they can find water on our planet, they can begin to explain why our drinkable water supply is so low. We read a nonfiction article about Earth’s water, and we watch two short video clips. As we do this, we’re adding to our CER Chart.

ELABORATE

Students have just read that our Earth is 71% water in our “Explain” reading passage, so now it’s time to find out where it’s all distributed. Students are given access to a website where they have access to a video and posters that show students the percentages of where water can be found across Earth. Students create a poster with pie charts to visually represent this data. 

Representing the data in visual ways is important, and as we do this work, I am continually reinforcing with my students how they can tell which forms of water are fresh vs. where our saltwater lies. We also take time during this step of the unit to identify key vocabulary that our students have been exposed to, such as reservoir and hydrosphere.

EVALUATE

This is my favorite part of this unit! As a class, we go back to our Claim that we made on Day 1. We remind ourselves of the Evidence that we’ve collected over the past few days, and now we’re ready to make our Reasoning together! I like to have my students discuss this in small groups first, as it allows me to gather some authentic assessment data as I listen in. Then, together, we create our class Reasoning. Why is our water supply on Earth so limited?

EXTEND

Our students need this Earth to be healthy for many more decades, so addressing water pollution is one way for our students to see how they can positively impact Earth. Students work through a lab that helps them see what happens to water when it becomes polluted.

QUIZ

Our unit plan has a quiz with 10 questions on it. This is a great way to collect additional, concrete data for your assessment purposes. There are multiple choice and open response questions.

Collecting data and evidence about Earth’s water supply – and learning how we can be good stewards to maintain our drinking supply – is a remarkable phenomenon to engage students!

If you’re interested in this unit with all the printables, directions, sample CER, and examples, it is available on TPT. Distribution of Water on Earth Activities Pack

-Mikey, 5th Grade Teacher and Science Penguin Blogger