Getting Started with
Caretaking Our World’s Water

1. Read the Background for Teachers essay. It contains more in-depth information that will help you answer questions and guide students’ exploration.
2. Familiarize yourself with the Student Adventures content for “Caretaking Our World’s Water.”
3. Review the classroom- and field-based hands-on activities in Teacher-Led Activities and choose the ones suited to your curricular needs and classroom circumstances.
4. Introduce the topic with a discussion. Here are some suggested discussion starters:
• Who needs water? Why?
• Is there a lot of usable fresh water on Earth? Where is it?
• Where does tap water come from? Where does it go?
• Why should we conserve water?
• How can we conserve water?
• Why is clean, pollution-free water important?
• How can we prevent water pollution?
5. Review these topic-specific vocabulary words or have students define them as they discover them in context in the “Caretaking Our World’s Water” student magazine:
   
   aquifer
   climate change
   compost
   conserve
   drought
   fresh water
   gravity
   
   

   groundwater
   habitat
   native
   natural resource
   nonnative
   pollutant
   pollution
   
   

   precipitation
   recycle
   runoff
   salt water
   water treatment plant
   watershed
   
   
   Definitions for all vocabulary words can be found in the online Naturalist’s Glossary.
6. With the whole class or in small groups, review and discuss the content and features of the student magazine and other student content that you’ve incorporated into your teaching or that students have explored on their own.
7. Do the hands-on activities you’ve selected, and follow up with review and discussion.
8. Download the Assessment Questions and answer key for “Caretaking Our World’s Water” to use as a tool for evaluating students’ learning experiences with Audubon Adventures Naturalist’s Bibliography.

Photo: kahj19/iStock.