The Ole Water Cycle Story Book

            Making the water cycle or rock cycle (or any cycle) into a story is an age old lesson. I have seen and heard of this type of lesson since I was in college.  It is also all over the Internet if you type in any search that resembles “Water Cycle Lessons.”  This year is the first time that I actually did it, and I am here to say that it was AWESOME.  I did this with my Earth Science class this year as a refresher. They study the water cycle as apart of their weather unit in the 8th grade in Indiana. After we spend some time doing precursor lessons over the water cycle I decided to have them create a story of a water molecule going through the cycle.  

Things the story had to include:

• All of our vocabulary words from the unit (which can vary for different levels) 
• 5 different stops along the way
• End in the same place that they started 
• The process and explanation how their molecule moved from one place to the other
• (Including words like evaporation, condensation etc.)
• A relevant picture on each page of their story

What I loved about this lesson again were the conversations I heard while they were doing it.  They were asking each other and myself a ton of questions that were at a deeper level of thinking they have had to use before. They were actually helping peer edit each other’s stories (I did not even have to make them.)  As a teacher it truly was awesome to hear and see this from my students.  It also turned out to be a great assessment on how much they actually understood about the processes of the water cycle.  

Recommended Procedure:

1. Have students write out the path that they are going to take through the water cycle in their journals in a column.  In the column right next to that have them right the process for how they are going to get their molecule from place to place (evaporation, precipitation etc)
2. Then have students figure out what part of the cycle is going on each page of their story.
3. Have them make a rough draft underlining and checking everything off as they go.
4. Final Draft (I had them write it out not type it)
5. Drawings and cover page.

Have fun!