Explore the water cycle with this engaging Year 4 Earth & Space Sciences unit of work.

This 8-lesson inquiry-based unit includes a variety of engaging and purposeful tasks to help your students understand concepts related to water sources, the water cycle and water-saving measures.

Your students will complete two scientific investigations. The first explores the effects of evaporation on different types of water, including fresh and salt water. A comprehensive marking rubric is provided. The second provides students with the opportunity to observe a cloud-in-a bottle demonstration that shows the effects of condensation.

Other engaging activities include researching the world’s water sources and the water treatment process, describing and illustrating the steps of the water cycle, discovering methods to save water and exploring First Nations Australians knowledge of the water cycle, water sources and water conservation. A final assessment task is included which allows students to demonstrate the knowledge that they have developed throughout the unit.

This unit includes everything that you need to confidently plan, teach and assess 8 lessons of Earth & Space Sciences, Science Inquiry and Science as a Human Endeavour V9 Australian Curriculum aligned content.

The unit plan package downloads as a zip file and contains the following resources:

1. Unit Guide: includes a scope and sequence, unit overview, lesson plans with associated and suggested resources, assessments and rubrics.
2. PowerPoints: includes two informative presentations and one quiz.
3. Displays: includes a unit banner, a set of precipitation posters, a water cycle display and word wall cards organised into tiered vocabulary.