Battle of the Bay...a watershed journey

This was a cool way to show the journey of raindrops from the land, to the stream, to the river, to the Bay...  brought to you by Friends of the Rappahannock.

Make circles that say creek in orange, stream in yellow, rivers in orange and Chesapeake Bay in yellow.  Because our watershed is based on four major rivers in Virginia she even labeled the rivers with the actual names (Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James).  The blue fabric was a nice touch, too, as the Chesapeake Bay!

Next, divide the children into four groups and place at the four corners of the room.  To progress along the watershed, they must complete a task!

Task one - make a food chain....
This one had pictures preselected and laminated with an orange strip to lay them on with Velcro fasteners.  Each of the four corners had a different food chain, but one you would find in our local environments.

Next, she collected all four food chains and made a food web. I love how they quickly fastened onto the poster with the Velcro and created a nice visual of how they are all connected.  Task one completed, they move to the next circle which was the stream.

Task Two - a puzzle.  She has a laminated map of the Virginia Watersheds with several questions based on the map.  The kids had to put the puzzle together and answer the questions.  Kind of reminded me of the show Survivor!

Puzzle complete they moved on to the rivers.  Task three - brainstorm all the different ways we use water at home and at school.  They had a ton of ways! This was fun and informative!

Finally they make it to the Chesapeake Bay...boy is it crowded in here with all the raindrops form all the many pathways! 

For more resources see:  Journey of a Raindrop from the Va. Department of Education and the online interactive Ways of a Watershed from the Alice Fergusen Foundation.