Exploring and Wondering About The World Around Us

During our theme time, we've shifted our focus from exploring what scientists do to exploring our community and the world around us. Today, we explored the question: What makes rivers flow and how are they formed? 

The giraffes had many different theories about what makes rivers flow, such as animals swimming and moving the water, wind blowing the water, lakes and ponds pushing the water, and water moving down a slope, like a ball on a ramp. During our Mystery Science lesson, we looked at a map of all the major rivers in North America, which is the continent where we live. We noticed that all major rivers lead out to the ocean, which means we could hop in a tube and float down a river, and we would eventually end up in the ocean! Many of us live near the Squamscott River, which connects to Great Bay and then the Atlantic Ocean. But where are these rivers coming from, and what makes the water move in one direction? 

We narrowed down our theories by thinking about what we knew about water. Animals live in all bodies of water, but not all bodies of water flow in one direction the way a river does. We also thought about the wind, but rivers move even when it is not windy outside, so we decided to think about our theory of the slope. 

We worked together with a partner to make a paper mountain, and then we colored the peaks of the mountain with a marker. 

After creating our mountains, Ms. Riley came around to make a "rainstorm" over our mountain with a spray bottle. Because the water hit the marker, the tiny "rivers" that formed made colorful lines as they flowed down the valleys between the peaks on the mountainside! We could see that over time with lots of precipitation, rivers could begin to form in these valleys as gravity pulled the water down the mountainside. 

We concluded that all major rivers begin in the mountains, and they move in one direction because gravity pulls the water down a gradual slope until it meets the ocean! These major rivers connect to and "feed" other rivers too, making the water move to lakes, ponds, brooks, and streams.