Note: Teacher’s notes are in red.

This activity is designed to increase students’ awareness that people and wildlife are connected to, and rely on, rivers through watersheds. (The terms “watershed” and “drainage basin” are used interchangeably; the use of one term over another usually depends on the context in which it’s being used.)

Your Mission
You use your river. Who else uses your river? Your teacher? Your neighbor? Your best friend? Your pet? You might be surprised to find out who (and what!) is using your river!

Subjects: Geography, Art

Relevant U.S. National Geography Standards: 7, 15

Materials

• Student handout “A River Runs Through Town” (Download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this file.)
• Butcher paper (large piece)
• Crumpled newspaper, rocks, cans, or other material to simulate a “landscape”
• Paint smocks for students (or ask students to wear old clothing the day of the activity)
• Plastic tarp (large)
• Small plastic cups
• Washable tempera paint
• Water
• Option: food coloring (washable)

River Review
Introduce students to the concept that every river is different. Ask students, What is a river? Write their answers on the blackboard. (For background information, go to http://www.aquatic.uoguelph.ca/
rivers/riverframes.htm.) (Canada’s Aquatic Environments, University of Guelph)

Acquaint students with some common terms about rivers. On a computer, review the river system diagram. Ask students how one river could differ along its course.

What is a river? Does that seem like a silly question? Why, everyone knows what a river is! But try this experiment: Ask 10 people, “What is a river?” You might get 10 different answers! That’s because every river is different. Yet all rivers have many features in common. For example, every river has a source and a mouth. Can you see some other things that every river has in common?

Who Uses Rivers?
Ask students, Have you ever visited a river? What did you do? What did you see other people doing? If students live near a river, do they spend time near the river?

Give students the handout “A River Runs Through Town.” (Download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this file.) Have students list ways they see the river environment being used. (Prompt older students by categorizing use: How is the river used for recreation? Transportation? For energy? For habitat? Are people using the river to benefit the economy?)

• Irrigating farmland, watering farm animals
• Recreation
• Transportation of goods
• Habitats for wildlife, fish, plants
• Industry, manufacturing
• Drinking water and other fresh-water needs (filling fountains and swimming pools)
• As a political boundary

Have students name other ways people or wildlife might use rivers. (Again, prompt older students with categories.) Other uses include:

• Fresh-water needs (for drinking; brushing teeth; taking showers and baths; flushing toilet; cooking; washing dishes, clothes, cars; watering lawns and golf courses; cleaning sidewalks)
• Disposing of wastes (i.e., photo developers and dry cleaners disposing of chemicals)
• Cultural or sacred reasons

Thousands of years ago, people settled near rivers, where they found fish to eat, fresh water for drinking, and water for cooking and bathing. How do people use rivers today?

Look at the drawing of an imaginary river, “A River Runs Through Town.” Count the ways that people and wildlife are using the river in their everyday activities. What other ways could people or wildlife use water from rivers?

A Model River
Emphasize that a river is part of a larger system—a watershed. Ask, Do you live in a watershed? (Yes, everyone lives in a watershed.)

Students should wear old clothing or paint smocks to “rain” on a model watershed.

Create a model watershed in the schoolyard, or in the classroom (inside, put a large plastic tarp on the floor first). Make an uneven “landscape” by placing a large piece of butcher paper over crumpled newspaper, rocks, cans, or other “landforms.” Mix several pints of washable tempera paint, or water colored with washable food coloring or tempera paint. One at a time, have students take turns making “rain” by slowly pouring small plastic cups of colored water or paint on the paper at different points. The “rainwater” will flow with the lay of the land, as it does in nature.

Have students relate the watershed to the river system diagram. Have them point in the directions of upstream and downstream. Ask, Where is the source of the river? The tributaries? The main river? The mouth? Point out some other features of a river system on the model. Ask, If you lived in this watershed, how would you be connected to the river? (Your drinking water might come from the river or from groundwater; your electricity could come from a power plant on the river; you might eat crops grown in the floodplain.) Can students see similarities between the river system diagram, the “River Runs Through Town” picture, and the model watershed?

Let the paint dry, and use the “watershed” as art.

To get a better picture of a river system, you’re going to make it “rain” on a model watershed. Imagine that the highest point of the model is a mountain. Slowly pour some “painted rain” on the top of the “mountain” and watch where the “river” flows. What features does your painted river have? (A source? A mouth? Does it have tributaries?)

If people and wildlife lived in your model watershed, everyone would share the water. Even if you live far away from a river, you are connected to your river.

River Wrap-Up
Students can reinforce what they learned about rivers at an interactive river. (ThinkQuest)

To emphasize how people and wildlife use the same watershed send students online or just print out a poster. For young children, print a coloring book of salmon. (Michigan State Department of Environmental Quality) (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)

Who’s using rivers? Lots of people, in lots of ways. Want to learn more about river systems? Travel along a river to see for yourself; start upstream at the river’s source, and follow the river downstream to the sea. Don’t miss a great quiz about the world’s great rivers! (Michigan State Department of Environmental Quality) (ThinkQuest)

Take Action—Geography Action!
So many people depend on rivers! And so many people use rivers! You can give rivers a helping hand by using less water and by doing everything you can to keep rivers clean.

Start at home, and help Showerlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who are hot on the case of figuring out how much water your family uses. (National Geographic Society)

Do other people in your school know how much people and wildlife rely on rivers? Display your painted watershed, and other drawings or photographs of rivers, and let everyone know how important rivers are.

Whatever you decide to do, tell us about it! Fill out the Geography Action! survey, and learn what other students are doing for rivers!

Activity adapted from “The Comprehensive Water Education Book,” page 151, courtesy of the International Office for Water Educations, Utah State University. For additional activities, please contact us at 800 922 4693. “A River Runs Through Town” illustration from the 1993 Geography Awareness Week teacher’s handbook. © 1993 National Geographic Society. Illustration by Barbara L. Gibson.

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Photographs (left to right): Amazon River, Brazil, by George F. Mobley; Castle Bruce River, Dominica, by Bruce Dale

Illustration (right): Dragonfly, copyright Corbis

© 2001 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.