Blue Planet Educator Resource

The Blue Planet Why do we call our planet Earth when its surface is mostly water?

CONTENTS BACKGROUND AND Measurable Objectives TEXT OVERVIEW Background and Text Overview INTRODUCTION GRADE LEVEL From space, our planet appears Vocabulary • 3-6 mostly blue due to the great Activities amount of water found at its SUBJECT AREAS • Blue Planet Activity and An- surface. About three-fourths of • Earth Science, Geography, swer Key Earth’s surface is covered with Math water. Relatively little of this Take Action! large amount of water is usable SKILLS • Poster Items fresh water. The rest is salt water in the ocean or is frozen as ice at • Gather, Analyze, Interpret, • Activities the North and South Poles. Think Present, Technology of it this way: If all the water Assessments VOCABULARY in the world fit into a bathtub • Pretest/Posttest and Answer (about 30 gallons or 114 liters), Attitude, climate, equator, Key fresh usable water would fill fresh water, latitude, percent, slightly more than a teaspoon. probability, random sample, salt • Critical Thinking Questions • What Did I Learn? Online Quiz water, watershed OUR BLUE PLANET Answer Key The majority of Earth’s surface Extensions is covered by water. The percentage of Earth’s surface that Resources is covered by water is about 71 • Project WET Resources percent, or almost three-fourths. • Additional Student Resources From space, our planet appears mostly blue due to the great • Additional Educator Resources amount of water found at its surface. Why blue? For our planet’s beautiful blue color, we can MEASURABLE thank the sun and the amazing OBJECTIVES ways of light. All colors are mixed within sunlight. When sunlight The learner will: falls on the ocean, most of the colors are absorbed completely. • Estimate the percentage of However, the color blue is ab- Earth’s surface that is covered sorbed the least, so the planet with water. looks blue. • Explain differences between salt water and fresh water. SALT WATER AND FRESH • Discuss the percentage of fresh WATER ON EARTH water available for humans to Most of the water on the surface use in relation to all water on of the Earth is contained in the Earth. ocean and seas where it is salt

1 DiscoverWater.org © 2011 Project WET Foundation use water not only for drinking but for bathing, washing clothes, flush- When cold ing the toilet, to generate water meets electricity, run factories, etc. It’s warm water, it very important to conserve as rises and mixes. much fresh water as possible. Circulation in the ocean is powered WATER AND LIFE by wind and There are many things we need, tides, the sun, such as shelter and clothing, but Earth’s rota- water. Salt water is water con- at the core there are four factors tion and water taining about 3.5 percent salts, necessary for life to exist: soil, air, density. or minerals. Minerals from gases sunlight and water. that enter the ocean through ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING cracks in the ocean floor and WEATHER AND CLIMATE Is it hot or dry where you live? Or rocks and soils that wash from Climates and weather patterns do you have lots of rainy or misty the continents give the ocean its around the entire planet are days? How about deep snows salty taste. About 97 percent of largely caused by the ocean, be- and freezing temperatures? Your the Earth’s water is salt water, 2 cause it plays such a large role in attitude (thoughts and feelings) percent is locked in the glaciers the circulation of energy, water about saving water and using it and polar ice caps, 0.5 percent and carbon. The ocean absorbs, wisely depends on where you is too polluted to use unless it’s stores and moves heat, energy live in the world. For example, if purified and 0.5 percent is usable and carbon. Surface currents you live in the mountains fresh water (or water that doesn’t carry warm water toward the of Western Montana, contain a large percentage of poles from the equator. Deeper where there’s lots of snow salts). This fresh water must be currents carry cold water toward and rain, your attitude shared among all people, plants the equator from the poles. about saving water is probably and animals on Earth. People quite different from a kid living

SOIL WATER Soil is the result of rock that has been broken down Water is the combination of two colorless and by physical and/or chemical processes called odorless gases—hydrogen and oxygen. It is weathering. Soil contains decomposed (decayed) needed to dissolve and carry food and waste plants and animals. Soil provides plants with within organisms. minerals and nutrients and helps transport water to plants’ roots.

AIR SUNLIGHT Air is a mixture of numerous gases including The sun illuminates and warms Earth’s surface. nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, neon, Plants use the sun’s energy to make sugar from helium and others. During plant photosynthesis, carbon dioxide and water—a process called carbon dioxide is used to build sugar. Respiration photosynthesis. Sunlight and soil are used directly (oxygen intake and carbon dioxide release) helps by plants and indirectly by animals. Animals get many plants and animals metabolize (convert into their nutrients and energy from plants or from energy) sugar in their cells. This burning of sugar animals that eat plants. supplies energy to living things.

2 DiscoverWater.org © 2011 Project WET Foundation in the Gobi Desert. A young ASSESSMENTS person in the Brazilian rain forest PRETEST/POSTTEST probably thinks differently about Before students visit the Blue water than a young native of the Planet Unit of the Discover Water Kalahari Desert. website, have them take the following quiz to see what they ACTIVITIES already know about wa- BLUE PLANET ACTIVITY ter on planet Earth. Please see Blue Planet Activity Have students student copy page. take the same quiz again as ANSWER KEY a posttest to Answers will vary measure learn- ing. TAKE ACTION! Please see Blue Planet Pretest/ POSTER ITEMS Answer should include discussion Posttest Student Copy Page. 1. I will shop smart by taking about how much of the water on my own reusable bags and Earth is salt water, and therefore PRETEST/POSTTEST ANSWER recycling plastic shopping not necessarily usable for humans, KEY bags. also that humans live on land and 2. I will recycle and reuse glass, 1. True are focused on our lives on land plastics and cardboard. 2. True and the fresh water we use. 3. Turn off the water while 3. True brushing your teeth, LEVEL 3 washing your hands and 4. All of the above What is your attitude about shampooing. water? How is it influenced by 5. Hydrogen and oxygen where you live? Compare your ACTIVITIES 6. True attitude with the ideas about water in other areas. 7. True Answer should be an opinion CRITICAL THINKING piece with reasoning to explain QUESTIONS the student’s attitude about water LEVEL 1 and include discussion of the If there is so much water on local climate, ways water is used Earth, why is only a small portion in your area and how that affects of it drinkable? local people’s attitudes. Discus- sion should also include mention Answer should include of different climates and how that discussion about how might affect attitude about water. much—3/4 or about 75%—of the water WHAT DID I LEARN? ONLINE on Earth is salt water QUIZ ANSWER KEY and that humans can’t drink salt Q. How much of Earth’s surface is water. covered with water? A. Three-fourths LEVEL 2 Why do we call our Q. Earth is called the Blue Planet planet Earth when its because there is so much water surface is mostly water? at its surface? A. True

3 DiscoverWater.org © 2011 Project WET Foundation Q. If all the water on Earth fit into • Water, Every Drop Counts a 30 gallon (114 liter) tub, the amount that is fresh water would Project WET Curriculum and fill slightly more than a: Activity Guide 2.0 Activities A. Teaspoon • A Drop in the Bucket Q. The difference between salt • Blue Planet water and fresh water is that salt • Common Water water contains more natural dis- solved salts. ADDITIONAL STUDENT A. True RESOURCES Eales, Philip. 2007. Map: Satellite. Q. There are actions one person New York, NY: Dorling Kinderse- can take to make a difference in ley, Inc. the health of the Blue Planet. A. True Hooper, Meredith. 2008. A Drop in My Drink: A Story of Water on EXTENSIONS Our Planet. London, UK: Francis Lincoln Children’s Books. Ideas for ways to support and expand lesson plans about this ADDITIONAL EDUCATOR topic or provide additional ac- RESOURCES tivities for advanced learners. Strahler and Strahler. 2010. • Become pen pals with some- Introducing Physical Geography, one from a different climate Fifth Edition. New York: John and compare your attitudes Wiley and Sons, Inc. Publishing about water Company. • Research major bodies of water on each continent Vowell, Julie and Marianne Phillips. 2007. A Drop through • Have students make salt water Time. Science and Children, 44 (9), using the same proportions as 30-34. sea water

RESOURCES PROJECT WET RESOURCES Project WET KIDS (Kids in Discovery Series) Booklets

• Discover Floods • Discover Marine Mammals • Discover Ports and Harbors • Discover Recycling, Take Action! • Discover Sea Turtles • Discover Drought • Explore Oceans • The Water Story

Blue Planet Activity For the Blue Planet Activity online, you will use the power of probability and will sample random points on the surface of a globe to determine if your results coincide with what you know about the proportion of land and water on Earth’s surface.

In theory, a random sampling of 100 points on an accurate globe would yield 71 points on water and 29 points on land. The number of samples, or the sample size, is important. The larger the sample size, the more accurate the results obtained. In the online activity, the sample size is 25 points. To get a more accurate result, use the chart below to keep track of your classmates’ results, or multiple turns of your own. You can then use the formula below to see if a larger sample size gave more accurate results.

Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 of turns Clicks in water Total 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 number of clicks

TOTAL # OF CLICKS IN WATER _____ X 100 = PERCENTAGE OF WATER ON EARTH TOTAL # OF CLICKS ______%

Blue Planet Unit Pretest/Posttest

1. True or false, there is more water than land at Earth’s surface?

2. True or false, Earth appears mostly blue because most of all the other colors are absorbed completely and blue is absorbed the least.

3. True or false, salt water contains at least 3.5 percent salts or minerals.

4. Which of the following is necessary for life to exist on Earth?

a. Air

b. Sunlight and soil

c. Water

d. All of the above

5. Water is a combination of which two gases?

e. Hydrogen and oxygen

f. Oxygen and nitrogen

g. Hydrogen and nitrogen

h. Neon and helium

6. True or false, global climates and weather patterns are affected by currents in the ocean?

7. True or false, your attitude about water is affected by where you live?

Score: _____/7