Environmental science, math, and art team up! Find out how much of the Earth is water and how much is land. Make a globe to show what you know! We love doing art projects to learn and when math is involved the more hands on you can be the better in my opinion. Then again, i am horriably in math. :) So when I ran across this idea from Carayola I immediatly wanted to do it with my younger kids in Kinder and 7th grade. Yes, the activity is for younger kids, but I thought her helping out with construction and explanations was a great way to refresh her as well with fractions.
- 1. Did you know Earth is a very wet place? Look at maps to see where water is located in your community, country, and on your planet. Look at a globe to find the world’s largest bodies of water. From where does that water come? Identify the continents. What if all continents were pushed together? How much of the planet would be water? What fraction would be land? Estimate, then research to find out what other scientists have calculated.
- 2. Create a new globe to show what fraction of the planet is water. Smooth Crayola Model Magic® over a crumpled foil ball to create a sphere. Air-dry your Earth overnight. To keep your globe from rolling, balance it on a paper cup.
- 3. Cover your painting area with newspaper. Use blue Crayola Premier™ Tempera Paint to cover the fraction of Earth that is water. Paint the remaining fraction green or brown to stand for land. Air-dry the paint.
- 4. Add Crayola Tempera Mixing Mediums to create textured effects on your globe. Paint Pearl It! over blue areas to create the effect of shimmering water. Mix Texture It! into green or brown paint. Dab textured paint onto land areas to make peaks and bumps. Air-dry your globe.
- 5. You’ll be able to feel how much of our planet is water and how much is land just as easily as you can see it!
More with this project:
1. Ask questions about nature versus human-built worlds.
2. Offer causal explanations appropriate to level of scientific knowledge
3. Read: One Wall: The Story of Water on Earth by: Rochelle Strauss\
- Fraction Earth Toss Game: Use Fraction Earth globes and inflatable traditional globes to make predictions and collect data about the Earth's surface. Toss each globe back and forth 25 times. Record what part of the globe is touched by the catcher's thumb for each toss. Before starting, predict how many touches will be on land and how many on water. Older students should be able to compare predictions with actual data.
- Generate a list of ways in which humans use the oceans, rivers, lakes, and waterways in their everyday lives. Then ask students to brainstorm how their lives might be altered if the size or quality of the Earth's bodies of water changed dramatically.
6. Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions referring to the same whole and having like denominators.
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