There are many ideas that you can work upon to make a science fair project. If you are specifically thinking about making a water cycle project, the following ideas should be of some help.
The water cycle is a natural phenomenon in which water undergoes evaporation and precipitation on a continuous basis. Different processes that are involved in the functioning of water cycle can be understood properly with diagrams. Demonstration of water cycle through project work however, provides a far better understanding of this natural phenomenon.
Ideas for Water Cycle Project
The water cycle plays an important role in supporting life on earth. It is one of the basic science concepts that is taught at school level. You can try out different types of experiments to study this concept. Few interesting ideas along with a simple procedure to make the water cycle project can be found in this article.
- The water cycle can be demonstrated by making a project and explaining it through appropriate diagrams.
- Preparing a PowerPoint presentation is one of the interesting water cycle ideas for kids. In the PowerPoint format, demonstration of water cycle is made with the help of slides. This helps in explaining the concept quite clearly as the audience gains an in depth idea of the subject through visual slides.
- You can also think of making a chart that contains descriptions of different processes of the water cycle for this project.
- A questionnaire or quiz on the topic of water cycle can be arranged during geography lectures. Information about the different processes of the water cycle can be used to prepare these question sets.
- You can plan a visit (under expert guidance) to a nearby watershed area to understand the processes involved in the water cycle. Information gathered in such visits can be put together on charts.
How to Make a Water Cycle Project
A simple procedure to make the water cycle project is presented below. Refer to the following instructions to learn about how to make a simple water cycle for kids.
Materials
- A medium-sized glass bowl
- Small cup for collecting the condensed water
- Plastic film
- Weight to be placed on plastic film
- Adhesive tape
Procedure
- First of all, water should be taken in the glass bowl.
- The small cup meant for collecting water should then be placed in the glass bowl.
- After placing the cup at the center of glass bowl, the whole assembly should be covered with a plastic film; adhesive tape can be used to fix the film to the sides of glass bowl.
- A suitable weight needs to be placed on the film (at the center). This final step completes the procedure of making the water cycle project assembly.
- The container should be placed in sunlight and observed after a certain amount of time.
- Evaporation takes place due to heat emitted by sunrays and this process takes the water vapor upwards.
- Water vapor touches the surface of plastic and finally condenses. This process turns the vapors into water droplets.
- Weight that is placed on the plastic film creates a descending slope towards the center of the glass bowl. All the condensed water droplets trickle along the slope and gather at its center.
- Water droplets gathered at the center of plastic film drop into the small cup placed in the glass bowl. This completes the water cycle. Students get to learn about the phenomena of evaporation and condensation through this project.
- A similar project can be made with the help of salt water. It is useful from the point of understanding the evaporation process of seawater.
Building a Watershed
Watershed is a drainage area bound by a ridge line. The precipitation (rainfall) that takes place within the area of ridge gets collected in the drainage area; this water flows through many different channels along the slope of the watershed area. All the channels finally meet to form a bigger stream or river. Making model of a typical watershed area is a good idea to explain the phenomenon of water cycle. Let us find out how to build a watershed with the easy-to-follow instructions presented below.
Materials
- Modeling clay
- Water-based or acrylic colors
- Painting brush
Procedure
- The activity of making a watershed project is aimed at modeling the pathways and channels through which water gets collected and flows through the drainage area.
- Modeling clay is used to create elevated portion, i.e., slopes of a watershed area. The benefit of using clay is that it can be carved into different shapes and forms.
- First of all, a model of sloping area should be created with the help of clay. The image of watershed on the upper-right corner of this page can be used for reference; just create a simple model without going into the finer details of the model above.
- The next step in this activity is to carve out the channels and streams along the slope of the watershed model. This step is important since, you depict the path of flow of water through these channels.
- Final step in the process of making the watershed model is that of painting and decoration. Use appropriate colors for mountains (greenish-blue), streams of water (blue). You can paint trees and shrubs on the slopes if you want to enhance the appearance.
Water Cycle Diagram
Making a demonstration of water cycle is always a better thing to do. However, some of you might just want to depict the water cycle through a diagram. Some useful tips on how to draw a water cycle diagram can be found below.
The elements which play an important role in the functioning of water cycle are sun, water and clouds. You should include all these elements in the diagram of water cycle. Arrows are used to depict the processes of evaporation and condensation. A 3D representation of the water cycle diagram should enhance its appearance; this can be done by shading the objects (clouds, mountains etc.). If possible, the channels through which percolated ground water meets seawater can be depicted through this diagram.
Some of the interesting water cycle project ideas are given in the article above. One can also think about other ideas than those mentioned above. However, try to make the project interesting for the audience. I hope that you find something interesting to work on, through ideas presented in this article.