This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 5th Grade Science.

In this video, students learn that the water cycle is the constant movement of water through the Earth and its atmosphere. Water on the ground evaporates, becoming water vapor. The vapor rises, becomes clouds, and then falls back to the earth as rain, snow, sleet or hail.

In this lesson, students read a storybook that outlines the water cycle and describes the importance of the sun to the cycle. The storybook can be downloaded from this link: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/epo/educators/thinkscientifically.php or from ITunes.

Sudents conduct a simple investigation to reinforce the processes of evaporational cooling and condensational warming.

This Speaker ToolKit includes talking points and suggestions, a "Best Practices" document to offer helpful suggestion before, during, and after the presentation, and a list of additional resources that may be accessed by the speaker and/or the educator. This presentation is designed to take one 30 to 45 minute presentation.

In this lesson, students explore the continuous cycle that water undergoes as it changes form.

This resource provides a lesson plan over 2-3 class periods for your students to learn the vocabulary of The Water Cycle and be able to teach it back through song or comics. They will learn the vocabulary words and the order in which the water cycle forms and works. 

This manual includes experiential lesson plans and activities about water and the water cycle. Topics include the relative distribution of water on earth, how that water cycles around the earth, and water conservation.

In this lesson, students will set up a model in a plastic container to demonstrate the processes of the water cycle.

In this hands on activity, students investigate the sun's role in the water cycle by setting three cups of water in different locations in the classroom. Students measure the water in the cups and determine in which location the water has evaporated the most (the sunniest.) Students may answer provided questions to analyze their results.

On this webpage, students read a brief story about "Dewey", a drop of water. Dewey changes states from liquid to vapor and back to liquid. After reading, the students are presented with two hands on activities to try that illustrate the concept of condensation.

 This is a multi-day culminating activity for Wonders Unit 5 weeks 1&2.  Students will use the Wonders materials provided in the Reading/Writing Companion, as well as their Literature Anthology to identify and describe the water cycle. Students will work together in small groups to make a diagram of the water cycle on construction paper. Students will then use a Makey Makey kit to record a definition and description of each element of the water cycle. Each student in the group will be responsible for coding and recording their specific water cycle element. Groups will need to have four students each, as there are four elements to the water cycle: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection or transpiration.

This interactive water cycle diagram illustrates and describes how water moves through and between locations on Earth.

Within this lesson students will pretend to go through the water cycle and then create a story of what it was like from their point of view. They will share their version of events with their classmates through a vlog format.

In this lesson, students read an article about the water cycle and in the associated activity, create a poster depicting the water cycle and labeling all the components and processes.