Topic: Water cycle
Area: Science
Abstract: To introduce the notion of “water cycle”, one painting of Van Gogh will be presented linking it with the notion of precipitation, rain and sun. The students will reproduce the water cycle with the different available materials. The teacher will guide them and the students have to understand by themselves the notions of the water cycle. They need to do these representations in front of the other groups
Learning objectives:
-Students will be able to understand the relationship between vapor pressure of water and the capacity of air to hold water vapor.
-Students will understand the water cycle
Teachers’ profile: (team transversality) Science teacher
Advisable age of students: (Flexible according to the curriculum of specific country) : 12-14 years old
Previous knowledge:
-Know the form of water
Global development Total duration: 45 minutes
Materials: Paper – pencils
Phase 1 Duration: 10 minutes Visualisation
“Starry night” (la nuit étoilée) Vincent Van Gogh
Discussion around the artist: Who? What did he do? Lead students to describe the painting presented. What does color represent? What kind of emotions do the colors represent?
Phase 2 Duration: 25 minutes Artistic action and experimentation
Development:
Warm up :
Play music and ask them to walk in the classroom. The teacher explains that the class must form groups of 7. Then each student must go around and try to collect 6 other people. At this point it is likely that groups of 2, 3 and 4 will be created, so these small groups have to combine together in order to be exactly 7. When a group is formed they all have to stand in different parts of the room as indicated by the teacher. The warm up finishes when the teacher assigns a role to each student in each group. There are 7 roles, therefore every student has a different one.
Drama activity : The group needs to recreate a cycle with some instructions.
7 phases need to be played in sequence to create the water cycle. The teacher needs to create 7 papers with the instructions. Each group has to show to each other their role.
- (evaporation) : Makes water become a gas
- (condensation): Makes water become a drop
- (precipitation) : Makes the water drop heavy
- Océan: Welcomes the water
- Water: Is in the ocean
- Cloud: Welcomes the gas
- Soil: Welcome the drop
Phase 3: Duration: 10 minutes Reflexion and debate
Development:
-Why do we think we did this activity?
-What do you think this circle represents?
-What do you think happens during winter?
-What do you think happens during summer?
-Do you think it’s the same circle in different regions of the world ?
-Do you think the drop is always a drop or can it be different things?
-Do you think it could be different in some different regions of the world?
Comments, possible derivations, and prolongations of the proposal:
Some difficulties can be added by removing some details from the riddles
References and links: The water cycle :