Hydrosphere!

Our TLC pals on Islesford led us in a really wonderful lesson about the Hydrosphere in science class on Monday afternoon. The hydrosphere is the combined mass of all the water in, on, and around our planet! Let's just say that is A LOT of water!

The lesson began with Ms. Eysnogle reminding the students that 75% of the Earth is covered in water! She included a visual of if the Earth was four quarters... three of those quarter's would represent our water and only 1 quarter would be the actual land we have on Earth!

The students were then challenged to guess how much of the Earth's water is fresh water! They were reminded that fresh water was any water that was not salt water... which includes lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, and even puddles!

The kids revealed their guesses. Quinn was actually pretty stinkin' close! He knew that less than 5% of the Earth's water is actually fresh!

Ms. Eysnogle showed us that actually only 3% of all the Earth's water is fresh! She is so good at giving us visual representations to understand more clearly!

After our group discussion, two of the older students on Islesford shared with us a slide show they created to teach us even more about our hydrosphere!

More great visuals!

We then got into the concept of the water cycle.

Each school was then asked to created "tableaux" for each of the steps of the water cycle and then come back and share with the group. It cracked me up when everyone covered or turned their cameras so each school could create their tablos in secrecy!

The Islesford School lead the "Water Cycle Tableaux!" Super creative and fun!

You can see all of our water cycle tableaux here!

We ended our lesson with a discussion about why we think the water is so important and what the study of the hydrosphere has made us wonder about. We came up with a great list of questions! I am excited to learn even more about our hydrosphere and how the water cycle effects our life on a daily basis!

Thanks Islesford for an EXCELLENT lesson. You guys are wicked smarty pants.