LAB :SURFACE WATER
The Hydrologic Cycle
You are going to follow a water molecule as it travels through the water cycle. Choose one card from your starting station, the card will tell you where your molecule is going to next and how or why it got there. Write down your results in the following chart. Note: if your card says “stay” go ahead and write the location where you are staying instead of the word “stay”.
Water from
(Where you start) Goes to
(Where you are going) Process
(How you got there)
WATER CYCLE ACTIVITY
Summary Sheet
How many times were you at each station?
Soil
Plant
River
Lake
Cloud
Ocean
Animal
Groundwater
Glacier
1. Prepare a bar graph for the classes’ data.
Soil Plants Rivers Lakes Clouds Oceans Animals Groundwater Glaciers
Water Cycle Stations
# Location
1 Ocean
2 Soil
3 Ocean
4 Plant
5 Ocean
6 Ocean
7 Ocean
8 River
9 Ocean
10 Lake
11 Ocean
12 Lake
13 Ocean
14 Groundwater
15 Ocean
16 Glacier
17 Ocean
18 Cloud
19 Ocean
20 Animal
2. Where in the hydrologic cycle did you spend most of your time and what is a reason that a water molecule would spend a lot of time there?
3. Did all of your classmates, who started at the same place you did, follow the same path? Describe similarities and differences.
4. This was a simulation – do you suppose that every water drop will follow the same path in nature? Why or Why not?
5. Does water spend more time in some reservoirs than others? Which ones? Why?
6. What makes the hydrologic cycle called a cycle?
7. How might the movement of water through the hydrologic cycle affect people? For full credit – discuss 2 separate reservoirs.
Streams and Topographic Maps
Answer the questions below based on careful analysis of the topographic maps. Start by carefully considering the landscape setting, topography, elevation, and any features that help describe the local landscape.
Campti, Louisiana
8. What type of river is the red river? Meandering stream Braided stream (circle one)
9. Where do these rivers typically form? Steep Mountains Gentle sloping plains (circle one)
10. Water is flowing from the northwest to the southeast. Below is an overlay of the Red River. Choose 2 colors to represent erosion and deposition. Using those colors indicate 4 places, on the map below, where erosion is occurring and 4 places where deposition is occurring, along the river banks. Make sure you leave a key as to which color means what.
Old River
11. What is the name of the depositional feature along this type of river?
12. What is the name of the bank that is being eroded?
13. Passoit Lake and “Old River” (just NW of map center) are the same type of feature. What is the technical name for these semi-circular features?
14. How did Passoit Lake and “Old River” form?
15. Where is there an example of one that has already undergone much of that process?
16. On the full sized map note the curved features on Smith Island (inside “Old River”). These occur near other meander bends on the map. What are these and how are they formed?
17. Were the features on Smith Island formed before or after the Old River was cut off? What evidence allows you to say this?
18. Using what you have learned about this type of river visualize the future of this river. On the overlay on the previous page sketch how you think the river might look in the future.
23. How long did it take you to complete this lab?
