LIBRARY COMPUTER LAB –Ms. Scribner’s Ecology Class

Go to

First read the basic article on the home page, then move to right side of page and then click on the following Online Adventures in the order below:

1. Meet the Creatures of Southeastern Rivers of US; click on Explore the ecoregion and answer the questions on the attached page

2. Return to home page and click on next OnLine Adventure: To dam or not to dam. Click on Full Version. Look upstream and downstream to answer the questions on the attached page.

3. Return to home page and click on the next OnLine Adventure: Watershed Game. Play the beginner game first then go to the next level.

LIBRARY COMPUTER LAB –Ms. Scribner’s Ecology Class

Go to

Name: ______HR: ___ Date: ______

Meet the Creatures of Southeastern Rivers of the USA

To dam or not to dam

Watershed Game
Practical Activity A: How Water Flows

Achievement Objectives

· To visually observe a "model" catchment.

· To investigate practically how water flows.

· To understand the relationship between speed of water and slope of land.

Essential Skills and Attitudes

· Exercise imagination, initiative and flexibility.

· Think critically, creatively, reflectively and logically.

· Learn to use materials efficiently and safely.

Resources Required

· large plastic sheet (e.g. 2m x 3m)

· materials to build slopes (e.g. bricks, blocks, boxes, sandpit or natural slopes in school

grounds)

· watering can or spray nozzle of hose to simulate rainfall

Instructions and Teachers Notes

This practical activity involves the building of a model catchment. This can be done using a

large plastic sheet draped over "man-made" hills and valleys. A variety of materials could be

used to make the hills,(sand, bark, boxes, screwed up newspaper, natural slope of school

grounds, etc.). The students could be involved in the building of the model catchment.

Revision of the catchment concept from the Waikato Waterways activity may be necessary.

Method

1. Use the materials and/or slope outside to create a "hilly valley" (refer diagram, p?) of

guide). Your hilly valley needs to include steep and gentle slopes, flat areas and hollows.

2. With the watering can and/or hose nozzle, spray water onto the plastic slope in different

areas.

3. Observe how the water flows.

- Which way does the water flow?

- Does the water flow along the "hills" or down the "valleys"?

- Where does the water flow?

From the mountains (high ground) to low areas, valleys, flats and eventually to the sea.

4. Place a leaf at the top of a steep slope within your model catchment, wash the leaf down

the slope with "rain". Observe. Repeat placing the leaf at the top of a gentle slope.

Observe.

- Compare the differences of the leaf travelling down the steep slope ("river") with the gentle

slope.

Differences in water velocity (speed) and width of "river".

Watershed Glossary

 Braided: a pattern of interlacing channels separated by sandbars

 Dendritic: a drainage pattern of streams that resembles the branches of a tree

 Deranged: an irregular or broken drainage pattern

 Downstream: in the direction of or nearer to the mouth of a stream

 Drainage: the natural run-off of water from an area by streams, rivers, etc.

 Drainage basin: a tract of land drained by a sole river system

 Drainage divide: the highest ground separating the drainage basins of streams

 Drainage pattern: the arrangement of a main river or a stream and its tributaries

 Headwaters: the source, or point of origin, of a stream

 Meandering: turning or winding, such as the flow of a river or stream

 Mouth: the place where a river or stream enters a larger body of water

 Radial: the kind of drainage pattern produced when streams flow down and outward from a central dome, such as a mountain or volcanic cone, on higher ground

 Riparian: related to or living or located on the bank of a river, lake, or tidewater

 Stream: any body of flowing water that runs from higher to lower ground in a channel under the force of gravity

 Stream order: the system of categorizing streams according to how many levels of tributaries contribute to a stream’s flow

 Streamside: land bordering a stream

 Trellis: the drainage pattern in which smaller streams meet the main stream at right angles, resembling the growth of a trained fruit tree

 Tributary: a small stream that joins a larger stream

 Upstream watershed: the portion of a watershed that is closer to the headwaters of a stream, as opposed to the downstream portion

 Watershed: a river system or area drained by a river and its tributaries