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Lesson plan Grade 2 Science

Building the Duncove Valley: A Grade 2 Water Model

Grade 2 students build a clay and paper model of a valley town, showing the hill, creek, and lake that supply its taps, then explain why the supply pipe runs downhill.

Objectives

  1. Students will build a model that shows a hill, flat land, a creek, and a lake in their correct places.
  2. Students will label the body of water that supplies a town with drinking water.
  3. Students will explain how the downhill shape of a pipe helps water reach the town.

Vocabulary

Key words: valley, model, lake, creek, downhill

Teacher overview

Asked where their water comes from, many students at this grade name the tap and stop, leaving the lake, the creek, and the hill out of the picture. This lesson uses the fictional town of Duncove, built on flat land at the bottom of a valley, to put those pieces back in order. Groups shape a hill in clay, lay a creek and a lake in blue paper, set the town on the valley floor, and then draw the pipe that carries water from the lake down to the houses. Treat the finished models as evidence rather than as craft projects, and plan to ask each group where the water starts and where it ends.

Procedure

Before class: Cut blue paper into creek strips and lake shapes, one set per group, and set out clay and bases. Copy the student handout.

Hook (5 min): Ask students to name every place they have seen water outdoors near the school. List the answers on the board. Then ask which one of those places could fill a whole town's cups, and let the class narrow the list to the larger bodies of water.

Shared reading (8 min): Read the description of the town of Duncove at the top of the student handout aloud twice. On the second reading, ask students to raise a hand each time they hear the name of a place. Write the four names on the board as they are heard: Sable Hill, Cold Spring Creek, Mereford Lake, and Duncove.

Model building (20 min): Groups of three build the valley on a paper plate. One student shapes Sable Hill at the north edge, one presses the clay flat where the town sits, and one places the blue paper for Cold Spring Creek and Mereford Lake. Place the lake on the lower slope of the hill, above the flat town area. Require that the creek touch the hill at one end and the lake at the other. Circulate with one question for each group: if rain falls on the top of the hill, where does it end up?

Handout work (10 min): Students answer questions 1 through 6 on their own, using the model in front of them. Question 5 asks them to draw the pipe from the lake to the town, so check that the line they draw runs down the slope rather than back up the hill.

Sharing and closure (7 min): Two groups present their models and trace the path of one raindrop with a finger, from the hilltop to a tap in town. As an exit check, ask every student to point to the lake on their own model when the teacher says the word "drinking water." Any student who points to the creek or the hill should be regrouped for the support activity the next day.

Building the Duncove Valley: A Grade 2 Water Model — Grade 2 Science
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

Read about the town of Duncove. Then build your model and answer the questions.

The town of Duncove sits on flat land at the bottom of a valley. A tall hill called Sable Hill stands at the north edge. Rain that falls on Sable Hill runs down into Cold Spring Creek. The creek flows into Mereford Lake. Mereford Lake sits on the lower slope of Sable Hill, above the town. The town takes its drinking water from Mereford Lake. A pipe carries that water from the lake to the town.

  1. What is the name of the lake in your model?
  2. Which is higher, Sable Hill or the town?
  3. Where does Cold Spring Creek end?
  4. Where does the town get its drinking water?
  5. Draw the pipe on your model. Does the water in the pipe run downhill or uphill?
  6. Write one sentence that tells what happens to rain that falls on Sable Hill.

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: Mereford Lake. The handout names it as the lake the creek flows into.
  2. Answer: Sable Hill. The town sits on flat land at the bottom of the valley, so the hill is the higher of the two.
  3. Answer: In Mereford Lake. The creek carries the rain water from the hill into the lake.
  4. Answer: From Mereford Lake. The handout says the town takes its drinking water from the lake.
  5. Answer: Downhill. The lake sits above the town, so the pipe runs down the slope toward the houses.
  6. Answer: It runs down the hill into Cold Spring Creek, and the creek carries it to Mereford Lake. Accept any sentence saying the rain runs downhill into the creek.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students a base with the hill and the flat land already shaped in clay so that the building time goes to placing the creek and the lake correctly. Provide the four place names on pre-printed flags rather than asking students to write them.

Extension

Ask students to add a second town on the far side of Sable Hill and decide whether it could use Mereford Lake as well. Accept any answer that reasons from the shape of the land, since a pipe would have to climb the hill to reach the far side.

ELL supports

Label each model piece in the student's first language alongside English before building begins, and teach "downhill" and "uphill" by walking a finger down and up the clay hill. Allow answers to questions 1 through 5 to be given by pointing at the model and naming the place aloud.