ACTIVITY#2: Make a Watershed in Your Hand!!

WHAT...

You can use crumpled paper to make a mini watershed model! This model shows the basic geography of a watershed, how water flows through it and the affect people can have on the quality of our water.

A watershed is a geographic area where water, sediments and dissolved minerals drain into one body of water like a stream, creek, reservoir or bay. A watershed includes all the plants, animals and people who live in it, as well as the non-living things like rocks and soil. We are all part of a watershed and everything we do can affect the surface and ground water that runs through it.

When you create your mini watershed, use markers that aren’t waterproof because you want them to ‘run’. This shows how rain moving through the watershed affects soil erosion and urban runoff.

HOW to Make Your Watershed...

1. Crumple a piece of paper into a tight ball. Gently open up the paper but don’t smooth it out. The highest points of the paper are mountain tops and the lowest wrinkles are valleys.

2. Use a marker that isn’t waterproof and color the highest points on the paper. These are the mountain ridge lines on the map.

3. With a second marker, mark where creeks, rivers, lakes and bays might be.

4. With a third marker, mark four or five places to represent where people are: houses, factories, shopping centers, hospitals, schools, etc.

5. Use a water bottle to lightly spray your maps. The spray represents rain falling into a watershed.

THINK ABOUT...

• What changes did you see after you sprayed water?
• Where did most of the ‘rain’ fall? What path did it go along?
• Where there any schools, homes, etc. in the way of the path of water? What happens to these buildings in the way of a raging river of crumbling hillside? How does the flow of water through the watershed affect our choice of building sites?
• How did your map show what a watershed is?

More Activities...

• Look at a topographic map of a neighborhood to see if you can find the ridge lines, creeks and rivers in your area’s watershed.
• Create an imaginary watershed. Map out the mountains, creeks, rivers and good places to put buildings and houses.
• Talk about land use and water quality. Play a game that shows different views on how we use water.

This activity is adapted from: River of Words, Teacher’s Guide, 1996. International Rivers Network