During the Arizona Project WET – Water Festival Unit of Study, 4th grade students explore the Arizona water cycle, map our regional watersheds, unearth the connection between groundwater and surface water, and learn how their behaviors impact water availability in Arizona. Students use this knowledge to develop accessible, community-focused solutions that simultaneously conserve water and promote sustainable decision-making.
The Unit of Study is designed to help teachers meet the 4th grade science standards using student-centered, 3-dimensional learning. This focuses on doing science: asking questions and defining problems, developing and using models, planning and carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data and constructing explanations and designing solutions. Emphasis also falls on recognizing relationships that connect all sciences and other fields of study. Specifically, the Arizona Water Festival Curriculum Unit puts students at the center of their own water cycle observing the phenomena that relate to the environment in which they live. Launching the unit, an interactive demonstration deconstructs the processes driving the water cycle and builds clear relationships between them. This “anchor phenomena” for the unit is accompanied by investigative phenomena for each lesson.
Unit Guiding Question:
Where is Arizona’s water? What are the connections between people, water, and heat in the environment?
Four Fields of Study | Objectives:
WATER CYCLE – Track the movement of water molecules through the Arizona water cycle.
GROUNDWATER – Model aquifer recharge and discharge connecting water availability to human behavior.
WATERSHED – Understand how water moves through a watershed and demonstrate the human impact of changes to that natural system; city surfaces affect the movement of water, and those changes can be observed/measured.
SUSTAINABILITY – Act as environmental stewards, conserving water through both behaviors and available technologies, supporting resilient solutions that benefit the (biodiverse) community.
Arizona Science Standards:
- 4.E1U1.6 Plan and carry out an investigation to explore and explain the interactions between Earth’s major systems and the impact on Earth’s surface materials and processes.
- 4.E1U3.9 Construct and support an evidence-based argument about the availability of water and its impact on life.
- 4.E1U2.10 Define problem(s) and design solution(s) to minimize the effects of natural hazards.
Unit-Wide Teaching Resources:
This guide contains all teaching instructions for each lesson.
The six lessons use slides to support the lesson objectives. The file was too large to share as one merged single document However, we have PowerPoints for each lesson here.
Download this consolidated equipment and resource list showing required items per lesson. Alternately, you may view each lesson's list separately on the pre- and post-festival lesson pages.
* If you are unable to download and of the documents, please contact an AWF Team Member and we will assist you.