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Meet the Micro:bits
Coding is easy and fun when students meet the micro:bits. Learn to write and download code, so you are ready to create your own scientific tools!
Meet the Micro:bits
Coding is easy and fun when students meet the micro:bits. Learn to write and download code, so you are ready to create your own scientific tools!
Student Edition
(English/Spanish)
Student Edition
(English/Spanish)
Student Edition
(English/Spanish)
California Wildfires
Watch Class Movie
teacher Prep
Lab sheet & activites
Class Movie
Watch Class Movie
Class Movie
Teacher Prep Movie
Lab Materials Needed
Blockey Koa Crate
from Kea STEMCrate
- 1 Springy Spring Scale per student
Student Lab Sheet
Earth's Water: It Freezes, It Flows, It Falls
Student Edition
(English/Spanish)
Teacher Edition
(English/Spanish)
Earth's Systems MS-ESS2-4:
Develop a model to describe the cycling of water through Earth's systems driven by energy from the sun and the force of gravity. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on the ways water changes its state as it moves through the multiple pathways of the hydrologic cycle. Examples of models can be conceptual or physical.] [Assessment Boundary: A quantitative understanding of the latent heats of vaporization and fusion is not assessed.]
Earth's Systems MS-ESS2-5:
Collect data to provide evidence for how the motions and complex interactions of air masses results in changes in weather conditions. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on how air masses flow from regions of high pressure to low pressure, causing weather (defined by temperature, pressure, humidity, precipitation, and wind) at a fixed location to change over time, and how sudden changes in weather can result when different air masses collide. Emphasis is on how weather can be predicted within probabilistic ranges. Examples of data can be provided to students (such as weather maps, diagrams, and visualizations) or obtained through laboratory experiments (such as with condensation).] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include recalling the names of cloud types or weather symbols used on weather maps or the reported diagrams from weather stations.]
Make a Thermometer
Students explore the properties of water by making a thermometer.
Pacing Guide:
Color Key: Green words- Hands-on Activity Black words- Book reading Blue words: Revisit the Phenomenon
Instruction day 1: Explore the Phenomenon
Summary: Guide an activity!
Lesson Objective: Get students excited to learn more about water.
Introduction: Ask students to individually sketch, in as much detail as possible, any of the following terms: aquifer, groundwater or water table. If they seem stumped by all three, ask them to sketch a well, and to include where they think the water being pumped from the well might be coming from. Ask a few students to share any thoughts and ideas (or questions) from the exercise before beginning the phenomenon activity!
Instructions: Before class begins, you might want to watch this video to prepare for the lab. Get out Eenie, Meanie and/or Miney graduated cylinders and Pippi Pipettes before class starts, and make sure each student (or pair of students) gets a graduated cylinder filled at least halfway with water. They should also each have two rocks (shale and sandstone) from the Koa STEMTaught crate.
Ask students to count how many drops of water they can fit into each rock before the rock won’t absorb any more. Explain that when it rains, or when snow melts, a lot of water gets stored underground in the spaces between rocks. In fact, in many places, that is where most of the water used in our homes, inside factories, and on farms comes from!
Guiding Questions:
Ask: Which rock is better at storing water? Which one would you rather build a farm on top of?
Example: I’d rather build a farm on top of sandstone, because it can hold a lot more water.
Ask: Would you add or change anything about the sketch you diagrammed at the start of class? What changes would you make?
Example: Instead of drawing a lake under the ground, I’d draw rock with lots of little pockets of water in it!
Wrap-up: Give students the option to set their rocks aside until the end of the day (in the sun if possible) and test if they can absorb any more water after some time has passed!
Groundwater and Surface Tension
Students explore the properties of water and reservoir rock.
Instruction day 2 (pages 233 - 234): Read and discuss
Summary: Meet the author and solve the riddle!
Lesson Objective: Students are introduced to the article and what it is about. Students learn about the scientist who contributed to this article and his interests.
Introduction: We’re starting a new article; let’s look at the cover. What do you notice about the image? What does the picture remind you of? What is the title of the article?
Instructions: Read about scientist/author Thane Kindred. Then, read the riddle aloud, and instruct students to write their answers before speaking them. Students discuss their best answer with a neighbor. Students will raise their hands to share their answers with the class and why they chose that answer. Reveal the answer to “unlock” the chapter.
Guiding Questions:
Ask: Thane studies geology, but decided to write an article about water. Why might a geologist be interested in water?
Example: Rocks can store water, which we witnessed yesterday. The way rocks and land are shaped influences where water falls and flows. Water can also shape landscapes! Or, since we all need water to survive, anybody at all can be interested in learning about water and connect it to what they study!
Ask: What are some other kinds of experts that might be connected to the water cycle in ways that aren’t obvious? What could those connections be?
Example: Astronomers who study outer space can search for water on other planets; farmers can learn how to best water their crops and decide what to grow; biologists can learn about how living things, or whole communities of living things, get the water they need to survive; toxicologists can test water for poisons and contamination. There are endless answers to this question!
Wrap-up: Ask students to take a minute and imagine all the ways the water cycle connects to them or their family. Do their parents work in jobs related to water? Does the water cycle affect how they choose to spend time together? Then have them each sketch themselves or their families, and label as many ways as they could think of that the water cycle connects to them.
Instruction day 3 (pages 235 - 236): Read and discuss
Summary: Read, discuss and watch a video clip.
Lesson Objective: Understand that water is essential for life, but mostly exists as saltwater in Earth’s oceans.
Introduction: You’ve all learned something about water before, but we’ll be diving in deeper now that you’re in 6th grade! Before we begin, turn to a partner and share one thing you already know about water on our planet, and one thing related to water that you want to learn more about. Invite a couple students to share something their partners said with the class.
(Hint: If students need inspiration, ask them to think about the sketches they made at the end of last class!)
Instructions: Read pages 235-236, then ask students to write down how many gallons of water they think it takes to make a cup of coffee, a hamburger patty and (if anybody wants a real challenge) a car! Watch the first 3 minutes, 41 seconds of this video to put “hidden” water uses into perspective—and learn how much water it actually takes to make certain items.
Guiding Questions:
Ask: What was your reaction when Anil Ahuja describes how much water it actually takes to make various products, like coffee, beef and cars? Were you surprised? How did you feel?
Example: Yes, I had no idea it would take that much!
Ask: If your family had just one bucket of water per day, how do you think you would use it? What would you do differently or not at all?
Example: We would drink it first, and wash our hands or cook food, but we probably wouldn’t wash laundry or water the lawn or take showers.
Wrap-up: In small groups (of 3-5 students), challenge students to come up with as many watery verbs as they can think of! Examples include flow, drip, melt, rain and dozens (or hundreds!) of others. Write each word on the board, and add a check mark if other groups thought of the same word.
Additional Resources
Instruction day 4 (pages 237 - 238): Read and discuss
Summary: Read, discuss and watch a video.
Lesson Objective: Distinguish where saltwater and freshwater exist, and why freshwater access is important for people.
Introduction: Raise your hand if you’ve ever tasted salty water! Does anybody want to share where they tasted it, and whether you liked it?
Instructions: Read pages 237 and 238. Then, watch this video about Hawaiians navigating across the salty sea the same way their ancestors did—in a traditional voyaging ship with no GPS, no satellites, and no compasses!
Guiding Question:
Ask: How could you try and find fresh water if you were sailing across the ocean?
Example: I could catch rain in a bottle or bowl, or I could try and find an island. (A very clever answer it might be interesting for the students to think about would be pulling some floating ice onboard if they were sailing in the very cold Arctic or Antarctic waters. The ice would melt as fresh water!)
Ask: Do you think Bernard Moitessier, Bruce Blankenfeld, Kaleo Wong and the other navigators would think of themselves as scientists or engineers? Do you think they are? Why or why not? (No wrong answer!)
Example: I think they are, because they observed and tested ideas to make solutions happen that worked best with the materials they had!
Additional Resources
Instruction day 5 (pages 239 - 242): Read and discuss
Summary: Read and discuss; experiment with Pippi Pipette.
Lesson Objective: Review the three phases of water, and begin exploring how water moves between phases.
Introduction: In pairs, have students decide which phase of water would be best to control as a superpower: solid (ice), liquid (water), or gas (vapor).
Instructions: Before you begin teaching, open Google Earth and look up Lake Superior, the world’s largest freshwater lake, so students can see it for reference once you read page 239. Make sure each student has a Pippi Pipette and a water source, ideally a large Miney graduated cylinder with water in it that they can share with other students.
Students follow the experiment outlined on page 239, where they each put two drops of water in the same spot on their desks to form a pool, as well as two drops of water smeared over another part of their desks. As the students wait for the water to evaporate, read the pages as a class, discussing as you go.
Guiding Questions:
Ask: What phase of water do you most often see in your everyday life—gas, like clouds or fog? Liquid? Solid ice? Is it fresh or salty? Where do you usually see it?
Example: I see fresh water in my house every day coming from the tap, and from water bottles. I see clouds a lot and those are made of water! (Depending on what they live near, students might mention that they see snow, lakes, rivers, irrigation canals, reservoirs or the ocean.)
Ask: What phases of water are in your classroom? Where are they?
Example: Your classroom probably has liquid water in students’ water bottles, a tap/sink, the drinking fountain and in everybody’s body! The classroom also has water vapor—even though it’s invisible, it’s there. There probably isn’t any solid water (ice) in your classroom!
Wrap-up: Ask students to share how long it took for the water drops on their desk to disappear, and where the water is now. (Hopefully they’ll identify that it evaporated and is now in the air as water vapor!)
Instruction day 6 (pages 243 - 244): Read, chart, and discuss
Summary: Read, measure and plot data.
Lesson Objective: Describe how temperature affects the amount of water air can hold.
Introduction: To get students warmed up for the day, ask them to share with a partner one thing about water they’ve found interesting or exciting and one thing they’ve found confusing or want to learn more about so far.
Instructions: Before class begins, take out your Pippi Pipettes, Tedros Test Tubes and Mezzi Measuring Tape so students can visualize what they’re plotting on the graph.
Read page 243 together, then let students work out their answers on page 244 in pairs. Ask students to hold up their test tubes with the amount of water they think can fit in a cubic meter inside the classroom (if some pairs finish faster than others, encourage them to try and measure out exactly what one cubic meter looks like using Mezzie!)
Guiding Question:
Ask: Where did you most recently see water vapor? What did it look like, and what was the temperature like?
Example: Clouds, mist, steam from a boiling kettle or pot on the stove, the bathroom mirror and air fogging after a hot shower and your breath when your exhale on a cold morning are all visible forms of water vapor! Less common answers might be steam rising off a hot spring, natural geyser or hot tub.
Instruction day 7 (pages 245 - 246): Read and discuss
Summary: Read and discuss.
Lesson Objective: Describe how equilibrium drives the movement of water.
Instructions: Read the pages as a class, then watch this video about an engineer who builds ice towers to store water for growing crops in the spring. Pause at 0:47 and see if any students know about how much “50-100 millimeters of rainfall” (hint: 5-10 centimeters of rainfall) per year is. Students can show with their hands, or you can use Mezzie Measuring Tape to visualize it—that’s less than four inches of rain for the entire year! Resume and finish the video, then discuss.
Guiding Questions:
Ask: Why does the stupa, or ice tower, melt gradually instead of all at once?
Example: Only the outside of the cone is being warmed up by the sun.
Ask: Why do we have so much variation in where ice exists on Earth, even though water wants to reach equilibrium?
Example: Whenever the temperature drops below freezing (like in the wintertime), water wants to become ice and snow! But as temperature changes based on weather, seasons, or time of day, the equilibrium might change.
Wrap-up: Now that you’ve learned more details about the water cycle, has your answer changed at all about which phase of water you’d control for a superpower? Why or why not?
Additional Resources
Instruction day 8 (pages 247 - 248): Read, write, and discuss
Summary: Read, discuss and guide an activity.
Lesson Objective: Students relate temperature and precipitation.
Introduction: Even when it’s invisible, air can hold a lot of water vapor, or gas!
Instructions: Read the pages as a class, then play “Drop It Like It’s Hot (Or Cold!)” as a class.
Group students together in teams of 5-6 and gather in circles. Give each group lots of marbles (ideally blue ones), and ask them to pick as many as they’d like to start with in front of themselves. Explain that they are all clouds or air “holding” water—and that they can hold more water if they’re warm, and less if they’re cold.
If you call out “Hot,” students can take as many marbles as they want. If you call out “Warm,” students can keep as many as they can hold in their cupped hands. If you call out “Cool,” students can keep as many as they can hold with one hand. If you call out “Cold,” students can keep as many as they can hold with two fingers. When students drop water because they’re cooling (aka put marbles back in the middle), see if they can do it as quickly as possible—you can make it into a Simon Says type of game.
Guiding Question:
Ask: Why would the temperature of the air change in real life?
Example: The air could move higher up or closer to the ground, or the time of day could change.
Ask: Based on what we just read, why do you only find dew on plants in the early morning?
Example: After the sun sets, it gets colder outside, and the water the air was holding when it was warmer must have condensed.
Ask: Do you think there’s usually more liquid water around at night or during the day? Why?
Example: At night, because when the temperature drops the air holds less water and it will fall! You can see this in dew on grass in the early morning.
Wrap-up: Imagine you are a weather reporter. How would you explain why it rains to your audience? Invite students to stand up and get into character!
Instruction day 9 (pages 249 - 250): Read and discuss
Summary: Read and discuss; guide a hands-on experiment.
Lesson Objective: Outline the water cycle.
Introduction: On the class’s Chromebooks, have each student complete this water footprint survey.
Instructions: Read page 249 as a class, then ask students to decide on their own which image represents which part of the water cycle.
Guiding Questions:
Ask: Which step(s) of the water cycle do you think we see happening most often?
Example:
Ask: What parts of your water footprint do you think are easiest to reduce?
Example: I use a lot of water in the food I eat, so I could eat less of the foods that need the most water.
Wrap-up: In pairs, ask students to brainstorm ways their school could lower its total water footprint so there can be more water to stay in rivers and streams and under the ground.
Instruction day 10 (pages 251 - 254): Read, write, and discuss
Summary: Read and discuss.
Lesson Objective: Describe how winds and mountains influence where precipitation falls.
Instructions: Read “Moisture Can Be Transported Over Land By Warm Winds” as a class before giving students time to write a short paragraph applying what they learned to California. Discuss before continuing on to reading “Runoff Is Stored Naturally Underground” and “Surface Runoff Supplies Water For Agriculture and Cities.”
Helpful hints: 20,000 cubic feet is about how much water would fill up a large classroom! Also, some students may be confused by the term runoff if they have heard it used before in a negative context. That’s because when an area is contaminated by pesticides or waste, the runoff can be harmful to people, rivers, and the bodies of water they run to (like lakes and oceans.) But runoff on its own is not a bad thing, and it’s super important for the water cycle!
Guiding Questions:
Ask: Most precipitation in California falls in the winter, but the rivers won’t fill up until the spring. Why?
Example: A lot of that water falls as snow in the mountains in the winter, and when the weather starts to warm, it melts and flows into all the rivers!
Instruction day 11 (pages 255 - 256): Read and Discuss
Summary: Read, watch a video and discuss.
Lesson Objective: Explain where water is naturally stored.
Introduction: Where do you think the water comes from when you walk into the bathroom at school and wash your hands? (The exact answer will be different depending on where you are). For a lot of people in the U.S. and around the world, the water we drink, bathe and clean with actually comes from underground!
Instructions: Read pages 255 and 256, then watch this video about groundwater use.
Guiding Question:
Ask: Where would be the best place for water if you wanted to store it without much of it evaporating—in a dam or underground?
Example: Underground!
Wrap-up: Go back to the sketch you made at the start of this chapter labeling the ways the water cycle connects with you or your family. Would you change anything or add anything knowing what you’ve learned about water since then? Have everyone discuss with a partner, then invite a few students to share with the whole class.
Additional Resources
Instruction day 12 (pages 257 - 258): Read, write, and discuss
Summary: Read, discuss and guide an activity.
Lesson Objective: Summarize the patterns in California’s groundwater over the last half-century and why they occur.
Introduction: We’ve already learned a lot about groundwater in the last couple weeks—before we begin, turn to your neighbor and come up with three interesting things you already know about groundwater! (Call on students to share—give the class a chance to show how much they’ve learned already.)
Instructions: Read the first paragraph of “California’s Largest Groundwater Study” together as a class, and ask students to take a moment and study the graph on the next page. Notice how the colors match the regions colored in on the map of California. Continue reading and give students enough time to think of answers to the prompts about interpreting the graph. Then, guide this activity:
Students are all on the board in charge of making decisions about water for their county (or an imaginary county somewhere in California). Imagine that you get to decide how much water to use in different ways—but it has to add up to the total “water units” your county has (a water unit can be 1 million gallons, 1,000 swimming pools, or something else—it doesn’t really matter.) They can only use 80 water units in the whole county next year.
In small groups, students discuss how much water should be allowed for different uses. What creative solutions or options could you come up with? How would you make sure the water is used fairly?
Instruction day 13 (pages 259 - 261): STEM Vocabulary and Writing Workshop
Summary: Reflect, write and play a game.
Lesson Objective: Students synthesize and reflect on what they’ve learned.
Introduction: We’ve learned a lot about water in the last couple weeks! Let’s review what we’ve learned.
Instructions: Give students time to fill out the vocab page on their own, then invite students to share with the class what they wrote for an interesting thing about each of the terms. Then, get the class playing water charades! Divide the students into three or four teams and give each team a turn picking someone to act out words related to the chapter. The student acting can gesture but can’t talk, and gets up to one minute to try and get their team to guess the correct word. Here are some terms you can use:
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Water cycle
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Sea level rise
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Saltwater
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Density
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Equilibrium
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Rain
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Condensation
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Ice
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Groundwater
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River
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Reservoir
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Water vapor
To wrap up, pick either of the writing prompts on the last page (or let students pick the one they prefer) and give students time to write.
Guiding Question:
Ask: What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter? What would you share with a family member or friend?
Example: I didn’t know that we are only able to drink such a tiny amount of the water on Earth. I would tell my parents that we should be careful with the water we use at home!
Instruction day 14: Evaluate
Google Forms Quiz: Teachers can access what students understand through this google forms quiz.
Click the link to copy this google form into your personal Google classroom.
Click the link to copy this form into your Google classroom.
*No password is required for the quiz*
Coding Activity: Digital Temperature Transmitter
Summary: Student learn a new coding skill
Lesson objective: Students program a digital thermometer
Instructions: Click the picture to access the coding activity
Digital Temperature Transmitter
Program a digital thermometer
Code a pair of micro:bits to become remote sensing thermometers.