5. Distant Reservoirs: Water in the Solar System

Setup: Prep Time 10 min.

• Prepare the Our Ideas poster.

*See Materials & Preparation in the Educator Guide linked above for full info.

21st Century Skills

• Collaboration
• Critical Thinking

Science Practices

• Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Learners Will Do

• Get information about different planetary bodies to discover where water can be found in our solar system.

Learners Will Know

• Scientists gather data to understand the natural world, including the solar system.

Connecting Across Activities

• Activity 4: Exploring the Solar System: Last time, learners explored the physical properties of planetary bodies in the solar system.
• Activity 5: Water in the Solar System: Today, learners explore the different reservoirs of water on planetary bodies in the solar system.
• Activity 6: Choose a Potential Water Reservoir to Explore: Next time, learners combine what they have learned to propose an extraterrestrial water reservoir to explore for life.

NASA Eyes on the Solar System app

Use the online interactive Eyes on the Solar System. As needed, use NISE’s Exploring the Solar System: Pocket Solar System or Solar System in Sound instead.

For reference to remember the order of the planets from the sun, you can share this Solar System Mnemonic (PDF) from the PLANETS STEM Event Activity with your learners.

To help learners understand what they will be doing during this activity, play the translatable video How to Use the Water in the Solar System Cards.

Show the video Water in the Solar System and the Science Activity 5 Water Worlds in the Solar System Poster (PDF) to support learner understanding about the locations of water in the solar system.

Water Phases and Reservoirs

Level Up! (Optional)

In the Educator Guide, you will see “Level Up!” Sections. These include great tips and activities that build and extend STEM and 21st Century skills, and create stronger connections between educators, youth, and families. They typically take a little extra time, so please plan accordingly.

• As a third way of displaying the information, tape the sets of cards on a wall at different heights depending on how much water is in each planetary system. (5 min.)
• To help learners remember the graph they created (45 min.)
  • have them draw a version of it in their Notebooks.
  • take a picture or audio/video recording. If you take a picture, print it and attach it to the Our Ideas poster.
  • have them enter the data into a spreadsheet and use it to create a graph and compare it to the human graph they created.
    • See the Water in the Solar System Key, Educator Guide pp. X, for a brief overview of the droplet values for all cards.
• Have learners identify which reservoirs contain water in multiple states (for example, ice and liquid) and tape those cards in between categories on the Our Ideas poster.
• Have learners think about ways their knowledge of water on other planetary bodies is limited. Ask: What else would you like to learn about water in these reservoirs? (5 min.)
• Ask this story prompt question: What kind of stories do you know about traveling to explore other planets? (Possible responses include stories from fiction and stories of humans sending robots to other planets.) Have learners share with a partner (note that the sharing can take forms other than speaking aloud). (20 min.)
• Tell learners, if anyone asks them what they did today, they can tell them “We learned about where there is water in the solar system.” (5 min.)
• Read more about where NASA missions have found water on Mars! NASA Is Locating Ice on Mars With This New Map – NASA. (5 min.)