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Worksheet Grade 4 Art & Music

Color the Sunfish Creek Watershed: A Map-Reading Worksheet

A grade 4 art-map worksheet where students read a fictional watershed map, mark how water flows, and plan colors and a key for high land and low land.

Objectives

  1. Students will read a watershed map and describe how water flows through it.
  2. Students will mark the flow direction of streams with arrows.
  3. Students will plan colors and a map key for high land and low land.

Vocabulary

Watershed
A watershed is all the land where rain that falls will drain to the same stream, river, or lake. Everyone lives in a watershed, no matter how far from the water they live.

Also: ridge, contour-line, map-key

Teacher overview

A watershed is all the land where rain drains into one creek or river, and reading a watershed map is a real skill that mapmakers, park planners, and water agencies use. This worksheet gives students a fictional map of the Sunfish Creek watershed and asks them both to read it, tracing how water flows, and to make design choices, planning colors and a map key. The map is described in words on the student page so the worksheet works even without a printed image, though a printed copy makes the coloring step easier.

Color the Sunfish Creek Watershed: A Map-Reading Worksheet — Grade 4 Art & Music
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Here is the map for this worksheet. Sunfish Creek is a fictional place. A high ridge runs along the north and east edges of the map. Curved contour lines are drawn across the map to show the shape of the land; they sit close together on steep slopes and farther apart on gentle, flatter ground. Three small streams start on the ridge. They are named Reed Brook, Stone Brook, and Mossy Brook. All three streams run downhill. They join together into Sunfish Creek. Sunfish Creek flows to the low southwest corner and empties into Sunfish Lake. A straight road crosses the middle of the map. If you do not have a printed map, sketch this map on blank paper before you start.

  1. Water flows from high land to low land. Does Sunfish Creek flow toward the lake or toward the ridge?
  2. A watershed is all the land where rain drains to one creek. What creek does this watershed drain to?
  3. Three small streams are on the map. They all join one creek. Which creek do they join?
  4. Count the small streams that flow into Sunfish Creek. Write the number.
  5. Draw a blue arrow on each stream to show the way it flows. Do the arrows point uphill or downhill?
  6. Contour lines show hills. Lines that are close together mean a steep slope. The north ridge has lines that are close together. Is the north ridge steep or gentle?
  7. Pick one color for the high ridge and a different color for the low land by the lake. Tell why your ridge color fits high land.
  8. Make a small map key. Draw one symbol for the lake and one symbol for a stream. Label each symbol.
  9. Rain falls on the road in the middle of the map. It runs into the nearest stream. Will that water reach Sunfish Lake? Use the map to explain.
  10. Why do all your stream arrows point downhill and never uphill?

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: Toward the lake. Water flows from the high ridge down to the low land, so the creek runs toward Sunfish Lake in the southwest.
  2. Answer: Sunfish Creek. Every stream on the map drains into Sunfish Creek, so the whole area is the Sunfish Creek watershed.
  3. Answer: Sunfish Creek. Reed Brook, Stone Brook, and Mossy Brook all join together into Sunfish Creek.
  4. Answer: 3 streams. The map names Reed Brook, Stone Brook, and Mossy Brook flowing into the creek.
  5. Answer: Downhill. The arrows follow the water from the high ridge down toward the creek and the lake, so they point downhill.
  6. Answer: Steep. Contour lines that are close together show a steep slope, and the north ridge has close lines.
  7. Answer: Student choice with a reason. Accept any color choice paired with a sensible reason, such as using dark brown for the high ridge because dark colors often stand for higher land on maps.
  8. Answer: Student key with two labeled symbols. A complete key shows one clear symbol for the lake and one for a stream, each with a written label.
  9. Answer: Yes. Rain on the road runs into the nearest stream, the stream joins Sunfish Creek, and the creek flows into Sunfish Lake, so the water reaches the lake.
  10. Answer: Because water flows downhill. Gravity pulls water from high land to low land, so the streams always run down toward the creek, never up.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students a map with the three streams already drawn as dotted lines and the ridge shaded, so they can focus on adding arrows, colors, and the key. Provide a two-word bank, "uphill" and "downhill," for items 5 and 10.

Extension

Ask students to add a new house to the map and mark, with a colored dot, which stream would carry that house's rainwater to Sunfish Creek. Then have them write one sentence explaining their choice using the flow of the land.

ELL supports

Pre-teach watershed, ridge, and slope with a simple side-view sketch of a hill and a valley. Pair each map word with a hand motion, such as a flat palm tilting down for slope, and allow arrows and labeled sketches in place of full sentences on items 5 and 8.

Extensions

Look up your own town on a printed or projected topographic map and find the nearest creek or river. Have students point to the higher land around it and predict which way local rain would flow, connecting the Sunfish Creek practice map to the real land where they live.