1. Earth’s Water Developed the the GPM Education and Public Outreach Team
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

2. What runs and never gets tired?
ENGAGE – Riddle me this
What runs and never gets tired?
What runs and has no feet, roars but has no mouth?
What lives in winter, dies in summer, and grows with its root upward?
Answers: water (like from a tap), the ocean or sea, and icicle.
What do they all have in common? WATER!
Riddles taken from
Photo credits

3. ENGAGE - KWL How much of the Earth is covered with water?
KWL – what do you know about water and what do you want to know?
Photo credits – Earth’s western hemisphere seen from space by the MODIS instrument on NASA’s Terra Satellite.

4. EXPLORE: Water on Earth
Predict: If the water in this 5 gallon bucket represents the water on Earth, how much do you think is in a form that is available to humans?
Before conducting the demonstration, ask students to predict how much of the 5 gallons they think is available to living things. (the answer is one drop. Less than 1 % of Earth’s water is available to living things – fresh, clean, liquid, and accessible above ground).
First student removes 2 cups. Bucket is 97% = salt water; 2 cups is 3% = fresh water
Move bucket aside
Next student removes ½ cup puts rest of 1 ½ cups into an ice cube tray. 1 ½ cups = freshwater that is frozen in ice caps, glaciers, and permafrost. ½ cup is liquid water and water vapor.
Next student holds out hand. Take some water in an eye dropper and put one drop into a student’s hand. This is available freshwater – clean, fresh, liquid, surface water.
Photo credits

5. EXPLAIN: Water on Earth
97.5% of Earth’s water is salt water
2.5% of Earth’s water is fresh water
98.7% of fresh water is frozen/ underground
1.3% of fresh water is surface water
Photo credits
Less than 1% of Earth’s water is usable for humans.

6. EXPLORE: Mapping Water on Earth
Where is the land? Where is the water? What types of water can on this map?
Photo credits:
odt.org

7. EXPLORE: Water and Landforms
Permafrost/Tundra
Lakes
Ocean
Wetlands
Discuss these examples of places where we find water
Photo credits:
odt.org
Nasa.gov
Usgs.gov
Desert
Rainforest
Ice/Glaciers

8. EXPLORE: Water on Earth with NatGeo
Click the picture to access the NG website. Then click on the blue words on right to show various water on Earth.
On their world outline, ask students to shade various waters in different colors according the student sheet and lesson plan.

9. EVALUATE
Why is Earth’s nickname “the water planet” both accurate and misleading?
List at least 5 things you learned to complete your KWL chart.
70% of Earth is water so it is appropriate. However only about 3% is freshwater and less than 1% is freshwater that is available for animals and humans to use. Also, we cannot create more water, so it is misleading because there is not an unlimited amount of water available to us.
Photo credits
legacy.mos.org
vegnews.com

10. EXTEND: Chart Earth’s Water
Give students the numbers to create their own pie chart or bar graph of global water distribution.
Examples:

11. GPM
The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Satellite will collect precipitation data from around the world.
Knowing where and how much rain or snow falls globally is vital to understanding how weather and climate impact both our environment and Earth’s water and energy cycles. Precipitation patterns have effects on agriculture, fresh water availability, and responses to natural disasters.
Give the students some information about the GPM satellite and mission. Click on the GPM picture to go to the GPM website for more information.

12. Video- “The Fresh(water) connection”
Click on the picture to go the webpage to show this short video (1:24) “GPM: The Fresh(water) Connectionhttp://gpm.nasa.gov/education/videos/gpm-freshwater-connection in which scientists discuss why it is important to study Earth’s freshwater resources and explains the purpose of the GPM mission.