Modeling the Water Cycle

You'll find many variations of this activity, some more sophisticated than others, throughout the Internet and in numerous books.  This one is very basic - it's simple to set up and can be effective in helping students visualize the processes occurring throughout the water cycle.

You'll need a glass jar with a metal lid.

Fill the jar with about an inch of hot tap water (the hotter it is, the faster you'll see something happening). 

Flip the lid upside down and set it on top of the jar.

Fill the lid with ice cubes.

Wait, watch and observe.

The hot water will evaporate.  As it rises, it will cool.  The cooled vapor will condense into drops, which will accumulate on the underside of the lid and eventually drop.

Why is the Sky Blue?

Fill a glass with water, then add a few drops of milk so it becomes a little cloudy.

Darken the room and shine a flashlight through the milky water.

Look into the glass from above.

T

The picture exaggerates the color a bit - it looks blue, but not neon blue!

The Earth's atmosphere is filled with dust and water drops.  These particles bend the light from the sun, causing it to appear blue.  In this demonstration, the milk provided the particles to bend the light from the flashlight.

At sunset, the angle of refraction changes and you're able to see colors from the other end of the spectrum - reds and oranges.

And, if you've ever watched a sunset in a region where there have been forest fires, you'll notice even more intense colors - more particles (smoke from the fire), causing more refraction. 

Tracking Hurricanes

Have your students track hurricanes in the same manner the pros do. 

Print out tracking maps from the National Hurricane Center. 

Then head to the Unisys Weather: Hurricane Data site.  Click on a year and then scroll down the page to find tracking data for each individual storm.  The data can be copied and pasted into a Word document, or printed from the site. 

Assign each student a different storm to track.  Plot each storm, using different colors to represent the category at that location. 


Here's an example of what the data looks like (the formatting is a little better on the site).

Date: 07-12 SEP 2009

 Hurricane-3 FRED

ADV LAT LON TIME WIND PR STAT
1 12.50 -24.50 09/07/21Z 30 1005 TROPICAL DEPRESSION
2 11.80 -26.30 09/08/03Z 35 1004 TROPICAL STORM
3 11.80 -27.30 09/08/09Z 45 1000 TROPICAL STORM
4 11.90 -28.60 09/08/15Z 55 994 TROPICAL STORM
5 12.10 -29.80 09/08/21Z 60 990 TROPICAL STORM
6 12.60 -30.60 09/09/03Z 65 987 HURRICANE-1
7 13.20 -31.70 09/09/09Z 90 970 HURRICANE-2
8 13.90 -32.40 09/09/15Z 105 958 HURRICANE-3
9 14.80 -33.30 09/09/21Z 100 960 HURRICANE-3
10 15.30 -33.70 09/10/03Z 90 965 HURRICANE-2
11 15.90 -34.60 09/10/09Z 90 970 HURRICANE-2
12 16.80 -35.10 09/10/15Z 85 974 HURRICANE-2
13 17.30 -35.10 09/10/21Z 80 975 HURRICANE-1
14 17.40 -35.10 09/11/03Z 75 980 HURRICANE-1
15 17.70 -35.10 09/11/09Z 75 980 HURRICANE-1
16 18.00 -35.00 09/11/15Z 70 983 HURRICANE-1
17 18.10 -34.60 09/11/21Z 60 987 TROPICAL STORM
18 18.00 -33.60 09/12/03Z 50 998 TROPICAL STORM
19 17.80 -33.60 09/12/09Z 40 1002 TROPICAL STORM
20 17.50 -33.70 09/12/15Z 35 1002 TROPICAL STORM
21 17.70 -33.70 09/12/21Z 30 1005 TROPICAL DEPRESSION

And the plot would resemble this:

Weather: Cloud in a Bottle

Clouds will not form unless 3 “ingredients” are present:
1. Moisture
2. Particulate matter
3. Pressure

You’ll need an empty 2L plastic bottle with its cap, a match and a small scrap of paper.

Place several drops of water in the bottle - moisture. Use the match to light the small piece of paper on fire, let it burn for a few moments, then drop it into the bottle - particulate matter - and quickly cap it. Then apply pressure by squeezing the sides of the bottle. Release the sides and your cloud will appear. Squeeze again and the cloud will disappear. Release the sides and the cloud will reappear. You should be able to get the cloud to form several times before you need to begin again.

Encourage students to each bring in their own bottle, so they can each make their own cloud (the teacher should keep the matches). Also, you may want to encourage students to experiment to determine if it’s possible to form a cloud if one of the components is missing.