Amazon Water Cycle Role-play

• cards for each role (one per student)
• 2 bags labeled “cloud”
• 2 bags labeled “ocean”
• 1 large bag of cotton balls (representing rain drops)
• if desired, leaves cut from construction paper

1. Print a role card for each student. See the “Table of Student Roles” at the end of this lesson to determine how many of each card to print.
2. Gather materials.
3. If desired, cut leaves from green construction paper to act as props for the “Leaves” actors.
4. Select an open area to use as the “stage” for the role play.

1. Introduce or review the water cycle. The water cycle helps us understand how water moves around in the environment – in the air as vapor, on land as bodies of water, and in living things.
    
2. Remind students that water can exist in the form of a solid, liquid, or a gas. You won’t find much ice in the warm tropics, but in the Amazon, you’ll find plenty of water in the form of liquid (in bodies of water, plants, and animals!) or gas (held by air as water vapor). Have students identify points in the water cycle where water changes from one form to another.
    
3. Break the class into teams of actors who will play each role. Distribute role cards and props to the actors and give students time to read about their roles, recite their lines, and practice any gestures (these are all described on the role cards, and also explained at the end of this lesson plan).

   • Teacher Tip: Be prepared for a degree of noise and chaos (and fun!) as the cotton balls start traveling and your whole class calls out their lines at the same time. Set some clear expectations for student behavior ahead of time to keep things manageable, and establish a signal that will tell students when to stop the role-play.
      

4. Position students on the “stage.” The river actors should be seated on the floor in a line, with the ocean actors at one end of the river. Tree actors can be situated on either side of the river, with the root actors seated on the floor and leaves actors standing above them. Cloud and air actors should roam freely around the stage. (See the diagram at the end of this lesson plan.)
    
5. Distribute cotton balls randomly around the stage, describing how, at any one time, different water droplets are involved in the various water cycle processes. In our rainforest, water is in the river, is flowing up tree trunks, and is hanging out in the air, making it quite humid.
    
6. Dress rehearsal: begin a 1-minute practice round of the role-play after confirming students understand their responsibilities. As a rule, actors must stick to the script, only passing water drops to and from specific actors as designated on the role cards. Allow for a degree of mistake, practice, and adjustment!
    
7. Performance: begin the skit once more; this time, instruct actors that this act will be considered “Take 1”, so they should be careful to distribute drops correctly, use props appropriately, and follow the script. If problems arise, feel free to “cut” and begin a new “take.”
    
8. Freeze the cycle after 1 - 2 minutes of proper role-play. Have students look around to see where the water drops are located at this point in time.
    
9. Continue the action and freeze again after a few minutes. Look around again and see what has changed. Review the multiple paths water can take in the cycle, and how air, heat, gravity, and plants contribute to its movement.

• Introduce a water drop that is a different color than the rest, and follow it’s path through the water cycle. Make note of where this drop is each time you pause the action, and talk about how it got there. If desired, diagram the progress of this water drop, highlighting the points where it changed from liquid to vapor or vice versa.
   
• Explore cause and effect by introducing changes to the environment, such as “cutting down” all the trees (removing those actors from the stage) or damming the river (preventing the river actors from passing along their drops. Have students observe what happens to the water in these situations and compare it to what happened in the original scenario.

The items listed below indicate how the activities supports the three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards:

Science & Engineering Practices:

• Developing and using models
  • 3-5: Develop and/or use models to describe and/or predict phenomena.
  • 3-5: Use a model to test cause and effect relationships or interactions concerning the functioning of a natural or designed systems. [Extensions]
  • 6-8: Develop and/or use a model to predict and/or describe phenomena.

Disciplinary Core Ideas:

• MS-ESS2.C: The Roles of Water in Earth’s Surface Processes
  • Water continually cycles among land, ocean, and atmosphere via transpiration, evaporation, condensation and crystallization, and precipitation, as well as downhill flows on land.

Crosscutting Concepts:

• Cause and effect
  • 6-8: Cause and effect relationships may be used to predict phenomena in natural or designed systems. [Extensions]

Related Performance Expectations

Remember, performance expectations are not a set of instructional or assessment tasks. They are statements of what students should be able to do after instruction. This activity or unit is just one of many that could help prepare your students to perform the following hypothetical tasks that demonstrate their understanding:

MS-ESS2-4: Develop a model to describe the cycling of water through the Earth’s systems driven by energy from the sun and the force of gravity. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on the ways in which water changes its state as it moves through the multiple pathways of the hydrological cycle. Examples of models can be conceptual or physical.] [Assessment Boundary: A quantitative understanding of the latent heats of vaporization and fusion is not assessed.]