water cycle good visual for second grade; activities that highlight how much water we use, water treatment, and aquifer.
Lincoln Public Schools - science - water and wetlands - grade 5
Describe the steps of the water cycle, including a description of water storage.
Investigate and identify point and nonpoint sources of water pollution.
Simulate the steps in the water treatment process.
NOAA has primary resource collections on the Gulf oil spill, hurricanes, El Nino, tides and sea turtles. I really like the way they feature current topics of importance in the news right now. This would be a great way to teach media literacy to our students. They also have a feature activity section called "Data in the Classroom" where students can make real world connections with real data related to El Nino, sea level, and water quality.
This site is an excellent weather website with resource collections divided into the following areas: ocean and coasts, climate, weather and atmosphere, marine life (sea turtles), freshwater (water cycle), and special topics. There data visualizations for weather events, lots of maps and charts for middle/high school students to analyze weather events, water cycle lessons, and a section with activities for teachers to bring real world data into the classroom.
This site allows students to explore land & water management, national parks, minerals, fish & wildlife in the US. Check out the Astrogeology link for exploring our planetary system.