Materials

• Session one
• Water
• Clear plastic drinking cups
• Sugar cubes
• Tray
• Kool-aid powder
• Waterproof aprons (desirable but not necessary)
• Several different clear containers that will hold liquids

• Session two
• Bowls of water
• Wax paper
• Eye droppers

• Session three
  • 3-D topographic map of South Carolina or a physical map of South Carolina
  • A raindrop cut-out
  • River Story by Meredith Hooper; ISBN number 0-7636-0792-4
  • The Raindrops’ Journey song

Procedure

Session One Procedures

1. Give each student a cup of water. Have them observe the water with their senses. How does it look? How does it smell? How does it feel? How does it sound? How does it taste? What color is it? What shape is it? What size is it? Can the size and shape change? Write their observations on a chart in front of the class.
2. People are supposed to drink eight glasses of water every day. Ask students why humans need to drink so much water. Have them think about it and discuss their ideas. Discuss with students how water helps us eat our food (saliva), helps to keep us cool (sweat), helps to carry vitamins and minerals around our bodies (blood) and helps to remove wastes from our bodies (urine).
3. Using their cups of water, have the students conduct some experiments to see what water does for their bodies. Have the students roll up their sleeves, and spritz some water on their arms. Have them wait about a minute, and then describe how the water makes their arm feel. Ask them, "Why is it good to sweat when you have been running? How does the water in the sweat help your bodies?"
4. Give each student a sugar cube and have them drop it in their cup of water. Have the students observe what happens to the sugar cube in the water and describe what they observe. Discuss with them how the water helps break the sugar cube up into little pieces and how the saliva in our mouths helps to do the same thing to the food we eat so it is easier for us to chew it.
5. Have the students gather around a table for this demonstration. Set up a tray on the table so it is at an incline. Place a teaspoon of dry Kool-aid powder near the highest part of the tray. Pour water on the tray so it flows over the Kool-aid powder and have students observe and describe what happens. Discuss with the students how the water picks up and carries the Kool-aid and how the water in our blood does the same thing with vitamins and minerals, the good stuff in our body, so it can be carried to all parts of our body, and how urine does the same thing with wastes, the bad stuff in our bodies, so it can be carried out of our bodies.
6. Discuss with students whether plants and other animals need water. Ask them if they give water to their pets and houseplants. Discuss with students what these living things might need water for and whether they think all living things need water.

Session Two Procedures

1. Discuss with students whether or not they think that a living thing could survive without water. If a habitat is a place where living things can get the things they need to survive, ask students if it is possible to have a habitat without water. Ask students to name some of the ways that water gets into habitats (rain, streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, marshes, swamps, the ocean, groundwater).
2. Ask students to think about and discuss how raindrops become a lake or river or other body of water that animals can drink from and/or live in. To get them thinking about rain, as a class, create the sounds of a rainstorm. Perform the following motions and rain sounds while the students imitate:
   • Rub palms together back and forth (wind)
   • Snap fingers slowly then quickly (raindrops)
   • Clap hands, not all in the same rhythm (steady, light rain)
   • Slap thighs (heavy rain)
   • Stomp feet rapidly on the ground (downpour)
   • Slap thighs, clap hands, snap fingers quickly and get slower, then rub palms.
3. After creating the rainstorm, give students a piece of wax paper and have them put two drops of water on it with an eyedropper so they can see how water will join together. Ask students to place the two drops of water as close together as possible, without them touching. Ask students to lightly blow the drops together and observe how they are attracted to each other. Ask students to describe how the water drops cannot touch without becoming one large drop. Discuss with students how raindrops come together to form streams and rivers and lakes and other bodies of water that become important habitats for living things.
4. Have students observe and describe what happens to the water when they tilt the paper up at one end (water flows downhill). Ask the students what they think will happen to raindrops falling on top of a hill.
5. Have students lay their palm flat on the table on the wax paper. Tell students to pretend their hand is a hill. Drop raindrops on top of the "hill". Spritz water on the students' hands so they can observe and describe what happens (water flows downhill and collects to form a large area of water). Discuss with students how the puddles on and around their hand are like the streams and lakes that would form around a hill after a rainstorm and become habitats for many living things. 

Session Three Procedures

1. Have students examine a 3-D topographic map of South Carolina placed at the front of the classroom. Explain to the students that blue on the map represents water. Have students trace their fingers along the blue lines on the map to see that water can be found in habitats across South Carolina.
2. Have students determine which part of the state is the highest and which part is the lowest, (the mountains and the coast). Review with students how water flows downhill. Ask students, which way they think the rivers in South Carolina will flow and where do they think the water in the rivers eventually goes (they flow to the Ocean).
3. Give students the cutout of the raindrop, and ask them to place the cutout in the mountain region on the map. Tell them they are going to listen to a story to find out how the raindrop might travel across the state. Read River Story by Meredith Hooper. As you read the book, have the students move the raindrop cutout from the mountains to the sea across the South Carolina map to follow the story.
4. Discuss with students how water is constantly flowing across South Carolina and name some of the different habitats it will travel through and some of the living thing that would be found in each of the habitats.
5. Sing the The Raindrops Journey Song to reinforce what students have learned.

Follow-Up Questions:

1. Are there any habitats on earth that do not have water? Are there many living things that can be found there?
2. If water travels across the state, if someone throws some trash in a stream in the mountains can it eventually end up in the ocean?
3. Do we just get water in our bodies by drinking plain water? Do other things we eat and drink have water in them?