Mystery Science G5 L1: Hydrosphere & Water Distribution

Alice and Diego are friends who live in different parts of the world. Alice lives in Alaska, USA, where there are many frozen ice caps. Diego lives in Ontario, Canada, where there are large fresh water lakes. The graphs above show the amounts of salt water, frozen fresh water, and fresh water where Alice lives and where Diego lives. Compare the information from the two graphs.

True or False: There is more salt water than frozen fresh water where Alice lives. There is more frozen fresh water than fresh water where Diego lives.

• True

• False

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-4

Alice and Diego are friends who live in different parts of the world. Alice lives in Alaska, USA, where there are many frozen ice caps. Diego lives in Ontario, Canada, where there are large fresh water lakes. The graphs above show the amounts of salt water, frozen fresh water, and fresh water where Alice lives and where Diego lives. Compare the information from the two graphs.

True or False: There is less salt water where Alice lives compared to the amount of salt water where Diego lives.

• True

• False

Alice and Diego are friends who live in different parts of the world. Alice lives in Alaska, USA, where there are many frozen ice caps. Diego lives in Ontario, Canada, where there are large fresh water lakes. The graphs above show the amounts of salt water, frozen fresh water, and fresh water where Alice lives and where Diego lives. Compare the information from the two graphs.

True or False: There is at least 3 times more frozen fresh water than fresh water where Alice lives.

• True

• False

Alice has more total fresh water where she lives, but Diego has more fresh water that is actually available to use (for drinking and washing his hands). Why is that?

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS3-4

Zara lives in Europe. She is curious about the types of water covering the surface of the Earth where she lives. The graph below shows the types of water around Europe. The estimated surface areas of salt water, frozen fresh water, fresh water, and land are shown in the graph below.

True or False: There is at least 2 times more salt water than frozen fresh water where Zara lives.

• True

• False

True or False: There is ½ as much fresh water as there is frozen fresh water where Zara lives.

• True

• False

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-4

True or False: Most of the fresh water is stored in frozen ice caps (glaciers) where Zara lives.

• True

• False

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-4

Isabel lives in a part of the world where there are many large natural lakes. She wants to know how the amount of fresh water found where she lives compares with the amount of fresh water found on the entire Earth. The pie chart on the left shows the percent of water types covering the surface of the entire Earth. The pie chart on the right shows the percent of water types covering the surface of the region of the Earth where Isabel lives.

Using information from the pie charts, which of the sentences below are true? There may be more than 1 correct answer. Check all the correct answers.

• The percentage of fresh water where Isabel lives is 5 times higher than the percentage of fresh water on the entire Earth.

• The percentage of salt water where Isabel lives is ½ the percentage of salt water found on the entire Earth.

• The percentage of frozen fresh water where Isabel lives is at least 10 times higher than the percentage of frozen fresh water elsewhere on Earth.

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-4

The pie chart above only shows the surface areas of water where Isabel lives. It does not consider the depth of water. If you made another pie chart that showed the volumes of salt water, frozen fresh water, and fresh water, describe how the pie chart would be different.

(Hint: oceans are very deep—much deeper than most lakes and rivers.)