Exploring water worlds

You’ll need

Water
Blue food dye
Shallow plastic containers, such as a tuff tray, plastic boxes, paddling pool or empty sandpit
Items to create water scenes, such as toy animals, toy trees, craft shells, stones, compost, kinetic sand, play sand, twigs, seaweed, craft pebbles, craft leaves or small toy fishing nets
Playdough
Things to explore water with, such as jugs
Pipettes
Recyclable materials, such as tinfoil or cardboard tubes
Blue fabric or tissue paper
Rice

Before you begin

Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help.

Planning and setting up this activity

You could ask people to bring toy animals from home, such as plastic whales, turtles, ducks or other water-related animals. Remind everyone, including parents and carers, not to bring anything of precious, expensive, sentimental or treasured value. This is to prevent anything getting lost, damaged or broken. Not everyone will be able to bring items from home. There may be for lots of reasons, such as living situations or costs. You should consider bringing some items or spares for people to use.
If you’re collecting natural materials, always check what you’re allowed to take, as it may not be allowed, or you may need landowners' permission. Alternatively, you could use craft versions of natural items, such as shells, leaves, pebbles, moss, bark, play sand and pinecones. You could use the natural materials collection at our partner, Hobbycraft.
If you want to make the water blue, use blue food colouring to turn the water blue beforehand. You could use blue tissue paper or blue fabric instead of water. You could also dye rice different colours, such as green and blue, to represent different environments.
Books you could read to explore water include ‘Once Upon a Raindrop: The Story of Water’ by James Carter, ‘The Little Drop of Water’ by Rob Holmes and ‘Water: Exploring the Elements’ by Simone Akasha Nofel.

Running this activity

Gather everyone together and tell everyone you’re going to explore some bodies of water. Ask if anyone has ever visited somewhere with water, such as as a beach, river, lake, pond, coral reef, rockpool or canal. You could ask people what they can remember about it, what it looked like, what they found there and if there was any wildlife.
Explain that over two thirds of the Earth is covered in water, and water is very important for everything on the planet to live, so it’s important we look after places where water is. Ask everyone why they think water is important. Some ideas include people and animals drink it, water helps us to keep clean, and it helps plants to grow.
You might want to explain the water cycle. Water never leaves the Earth and its atmosphere. It likes to go on a big adventure again and again. This adventure is called the water cycle. The water cycle starts when the sun shines on the water in oceans and lakes, making it warm. When the water gets warm, it turns into a gas called water vapor, and it floats up into the sky. This is called evaporation. Up in the sky, the water vapor cools down and it all sticks together to form clouds. This is called condensation. When the water vapour making the clouds cools down, it condenses. This means it turns back into liquid (water). The water falls back to Earth as rain, snow, hail, or sleet. This is called precipitation. The water then flows over the land into rivers and streams, and finally goes back into the ocean or lakes. Then, the water cycle starts all over again! The water you drink today has been on this adventure many, many times. In fact, it’s the same water that dinosaurs drank a long, long time ago!
Tell everyone that they’re going to create their own water world in the tubs. Ask everyone what kind of water world they’d like to create. Depending on how many water trays you have, people could work individually, in pairs or in small groups. If people want to create similar watery worlds, they could work together.
Give each group a tub or a tray, then place the materials in the middle of the space, so everyone can use them.
Now, let the groups design and make their water worlds. Younger groups might need an adult or young leader to help them. They may want to create a sandy or stony beach, use animals and kinetic sand to make an underwater coral reef, or create a river out of tinfoil. You could also freeze some toys in ice or add ice cubes to create an arctic scene, or you may want to cut out some lily pads from green card to float on a pond scene.You might want to add human-made features too, such as bridges, lighthouses or boats.
Let everyone explore the water and the world they’ve created. They could use fishing nets, jugs or bottles to play with the water.
You could see if anyone can make the water cycle for their water world. You could use cotton wool or tissue paper for clouds, then use jugs or watering cans to show the rainfall.
If you’ve made multiple water worlds, then once everyone’s explored their own water world, encourage people to visit other people’s worlds too.

Reflection

This activity involved exploring water. Ask everyone what they liked about the water scenes and why. They might have liked the wildlife, trees or sand. What was different about how the water moved in each water world? How did the river or sea move? Can remember the water cycle? Did they try and make it for their water world? Where did the water come from, and where did the water go?

Water worlds can be called habitats, as it’s where wildlife lives. It’s their home. We need to help keep wildlife’s homes clean and tidy too. How did you keep their animals' homes clean and tidy in their water worlds?

People can sometimes do things that damage habitats, such as littering or putting things in the water that shouldn’t be there. We call this pollution. Pollution can make animals very ill, damage their homes and make it harder for them to find food. Did you do anything that could have caused pollution in your water world? You might have left something in the water world that shouldn’t have been there, such as a toy fishing net or litter, or you may have accidentally spilled something in the water. These things may have damaged the water in your water world, such as making it dirty. How can we help water worlds and animals that live in them on Earth? If we’re out exploring nature or near water, we should always take our litter home and recycle as much as we can. This means our litter won’t end up in the water and we won’t hurt the environment.

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Rubbish and recycling: All items should be clean and suitable for this activity.
Craft: Unusual substances: Supervise young people appropriately when they’re using unusual substances, such as powdered paint, ash or dirt. Be aware of any medical conditions that could be affected by what’s being used. Make sure you follow all relevant safety guidance or manufacturers guidelines, where available. Make sure you dispose of it appropriately too, in line with safety guidance.
Water games and activities: Be careful when doing activities with, in, or near water. Check surfaces and reduce the risk of slipping where possible. Make sure you have appropriate supervision for this activity.
Science: Supervise young people, and only do science activities that are advised and age appropriate for your section. Test activities first, to make sure you’re confident you can lead them safely. Use protective clothing where necessary.