3.ESS2.1: Develop a model to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere…

Our Living Planet Grade 4

Air, water, land and living things, and how each one depends on the others. Students build a sealed jar ecosystem to keep for a month and catch the water cycle in a bag on the window.

• Can a jar keep itself alive? 50–60 min to build, then 5 min check-ins twice a week for 4 weeks, and a 30 min Reveal and Act

  Each team builds a small world of soil, water, air and plants inside a clear jar, seals it, and keeps an observation log for four weeks beside an open jar built the same way. Students explain how water and air are used again and again inside the sealed jar, and why it still needs light from outside.

• Where does rain come from? 45–60 min, plus a 5 min look later the same day or the next morning

  Students tape a zip-top bag of blue water to a sunny window and another to a shady wall, and catch a cold cup 'sweating' in the room. They follow the water from the bottom of the bag to the clear drops at the top, and explain how the Sun, air and clouds bring rain back down.

The Water Cycle, Start to Finish Grades 3–6 · partly supports this outcome

A water-drop journey game around eight stations of the room, a 100-square model of where all of Earth's water really is, from USGS data, and a sealed bag of water on a sunny window that shows the Sun driving the whole cycle. Two of the three lessons need nothing but printed sheets.

• Where has the water in your glass been? 45–60 min

  Every student becomes a water drop and travels between eight stations around the room (ocean, cloud, glacier, river, lake, groundwater, plant and animal), spinning a printed spinner to find out what happens next and logging each step. The class then compares journeys and finds that the water cycle is a tangle of paths, not one neat circle.

• Can you make a mini water cycle? 45 min, plus 5-minute look-backs later that day and the next morning

  Teams seal a little coloured water in two zip-top bags, tape one to a sunny window and one in the shade, and watch water evaporate, condense into drops and run back down. Comparing the two bags gives the evidence that the Sun drives the water cycle and gravity brings the water back.

Printable practice for 3.ESS2.1

• Our Living Planet workbook included with the unit

  2 English-support pages, 2 practice pages, 2 readings, 1 word wall, 1 unit review, 1 unit test, with answer keys.

• The Water Cycle, Start to Finish workbook included with the unit

  2 English-support pages, 2 practice pages, 2 readings, 1 word wall, 1 unit review, 1 unit test, with answer keys.

• Weather Detectives workbook included with the unit

  2 practice pages, 2 readings, 1 word wall, 1 English-support page, 1 unit review, 1 unit test, with answer keys.

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