Welcome to the Water in the Environment Unit. The following Web Pages are filled with water related activities that will lead you and your students on a journey through the water cycle, from the air to watersheds to groundwater and through cave and karst areas. This program will help to develop a broad understanding of the importance of our world's water. The website is broken into sections to help organize planning. The activities of each section build upon each other to develop the entire hydrology program or can stand alone to support a study of that individual unit. You can choose all of the activities in a section, or just the ones you feel you have time for or that will work best for your class.

Most of the materials you need are easily available, but if you would like to have the unit trunk sent to you please contact the park by email or at 605-745-4600. Some photocopying may be necessary. In many of the activities there will be water left over when you finish. When this happens, encourage the students to support water conservation by finding ways to reuse the left over water. Please note that liquids such as peppermint extract, coffee grounds, vegetable oil, etc. are non-toxic, but you might not want to use them to water plants.

This program can be completed in four weeks by using approximately one-hour classroom periods each day. We hope that you enjoy the program and find it beneficial. We welcome any comments you have.

The program supports many of the National Science Standards. For more informaton please go to Hydrology Program Standards.

Water in the Environment Sections include:

1.  Introduction

2.  Watersheds

3.  Groundwater

4.  Cave and Karst

5.  Pollution

6.  Wrap-up Activities