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Identify the distribution of freshwater and salt water on Earth (e.g., oceans, lakes, rivers, glaciers, ground water, polar ice caps) and construct a graphical representation depicting the amounts and percentages found in different reservoirs.
Identify the distribution of freshwater and salt water on Earth (e.g., oceans, lakes, rivers, glaciers, ground water, polar ice caps) and construct a graphical representation depicting the amounts and percentages found in different reservoirs.
Unpacked Content
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Vocabulary
- Fresh water
- Salt water
- Oceans
- Lakes
- Rivers
- Glaciers
- Ground water
- Polar ice caps
- Reservoir
- Graph
Knowledge
Students know:
- Nearly all of Earth's available water is in the ocean.
- Most fresh water is in glaciers or underground; only a tiny fraction is in streams, lakes, wetlands, and the atmosphere.
Skills
Students are able to:
- Graph the given data (using standard units) about the amount of salt water and the amount of fresh water in each of the following reservoirs, as well as in all the reservoirs combined, to address a scientific question:
- Oceans.
- Lakes.
- Rivers.
- Glaciers.
- Ground water.
- Polar ice caps.
- Use the graphs of the relative amounts of total salt water and total fresh water in each of the reservoirs to describe that:
- The majority of water on Earth is found in the oceans.
- Most of the Earth's fresh water is stored in glaciers or underground.
- A small fraction of fresh water is found in lakes, rivers, wetlands, and the atmosphere.
Understanding
Students understand that:
- Standard units are used to measure and describe physical quantities such as the amounts of salt water and fresh water in various reservoirs.
Scientific and Engineering Practices
Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking
Crosscutting Concepts
Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
