1. The Never Ending Journey of a Drop of Water
Istituto Comprensivo Armando Diaz Primary School A. Diaz Class. 2nd School Year
The Never Ending Journey of a Drop of Water by
Maria Lauricella Maria Tafuro

2. A DROP of WATER We are going to spend an hour today in following
a Drop of Water on its travel

3. Let’ s do a brainstorming
“ Tell me, have you got any idea……………..
When was this drop on Earth?
What changes has it undergone?
Where does Earth’s water come from?”

4. WATER VAPOUR Water always seems to be disappearing from wet clothes.
We say it has dried up, but …
Where has the water gone?
Just as water can be a liquid, or solid, it can also be a gas.
The water from the wet clothes evaporates.
It turns into a gas called water vapour.
Molecule by molecule, the water from the drops on the wet clothes drifts invisibly into the air.

5. STORY MAP: Mrs. Mc Suewet
WATCH THE VIDEO:
COMPLETE THE CHART
Title
Main characters
Beginning:
Middle
End

6. The Story of Mrs.Mc Suewet
Mrs. Mc Suewet is a tiny drop of water.
She lives in the blue ocean.
She evaporates.
Her friends say: “ Good bye and be careful up there“
She is a droplet.
The clouds grow and she is heavier.
She falls faster and faster and she falls back to the blue ocean.

7. Molecules in Motion Experiment:
The sun’s heat and the earth’s gravity keep water in costant motion.
Experiment:
1. Use a clear glass or jar
2. Fill it with clear water
3. When the water is absolutely still, add a drop of blue food coloring
The molecules of food coloring separate as they move among the molecules of water.

8. EVAPORATION Water evaporates from streams, lakes, rivers and oceans,
from plants and trees and even from your skin.
If you don’t mind getting a little wet, you can test it with
an experiment.
Dip your hands in a basin of water and lift them up
Look: you bring with them small drops out of the water below
After 15 minutes the water drops on your hands disappear
You clearly see the spherical drops of water evaporating from your skin.

9. EVAPORATION Heating water in a kettle speeds evaporation.
Heat from the stove makes the water turn to steam, which is extremely hot water vapour.
When the steam hits the cooler air, tiny droplets form, and we see a cloud just beyond the kettle’s spout.
Immediately the droplets evaporate and change back to vapour.
Then the water molecules mingle with other molecules that make up air.

10. CLOUDS
Clouds are made of tiny water droplets too small to be seen without a microscope.
If a cloud droplet is to form, water vapour must first condense on a particle of dust.
Carried by wind, these dust particles are often bits of pollen, soil or salt.

11. How do cloud droplets form?
Experiment
1. Place some salt on a jar lid above a dish water
2. Put a glass cover to trap the water vapour
3. After some minutes, the vapour condenses on the salt.
4. After 2 hours, the salt dissolves in water vapour.

12. CONDENSATION
Clouds form when water evaporates from the earth’s surface and rises into colder air.
The vapour condenses on cold particles.
More and ore molecules cling to the particles until droplets form.

13. EXPERIMENT
Spray clean water on a mirror.
Place a glass upside down so it covers some, but not all, of drops.
What happens both outside and inside the glass?
Why do the water drops outside the glass disappear while the drops inside remain?

14. Experiment

15. OBSERVATIONS
Inside the glass, water evaporates, but the vapour is trapped.
Outside the glass, the drops disappear. The water evaporates and spreads throughout the air as vapour.

16. MAKE IT RAIN
Put the plastic cover and the cloud of the Water Cycle 3 D model in the freezer.
After 30 minutes take it out.
Put hot water inside the container.
Cover the container.

20. The RESULTS The air inside the container is full of water vapour.
After several minutes the vapour condenses back into the water drops as quickly as water molecules can evaporate.

21. PRECIPITATION
Massive clouds form as vapour condenses on tiny particles of dust in the air.
Then the water falls from the sky as rain replenishing streams, lakes, rivers and oceans.

22. SNOWFLAKES
In very cold air, water molecules that cling to particles form tiny ice crystal.
If the crystal grows large enough, it will fall to the ground as a snowflakes.
Snowflakes are ice crystals that form when water vapour changes directly from a gas to a solid.

23. FROST
As with snowflakes, frost is the result of water vapour changing from a gas to a solid.

24. COLLECTION
Water falls back from the sky to the streams, rivers, lakes and oceans.
Water covers the 70% of the Earth’s surface.

25. The WATER CYCLE CONTINUES…
water costantly recycles itself through a natural process.
water is collected in waterfalls, streams, lakes, rivers and it is carried back to the oceans and……...
The Water Cycle continues.

26. 3D MODEL: EVAPORATION

27. 3 D MODEL: CONDENSATION

28. 3D MODEL:PRECIPITATION

29. 3D MODEL: COLLECTION

30. 3D MODEL: WATER CYCLE

31. LINKS

32. Bibliography Nick Bishop, Cloud forest, London 2005.
Wendy Cooling, All the World Wonders, Poems of our Earth, London 2010.
Felice Frankel, Vision of Science, Milano 2005.
Monica Huges, Weather Patterns, Chicago 2004.
Miles Kelly, Polar Lands, London 2011.
Carol K. Lindeen, Solids, Liquids and Gases, Mankato, Minnesota 2008.
Carol K. Lindeen, Water Basics, Mankato, Minnesota 2008.
Walter Wick, A drop of water, A book of Science and Water, New York 1998.