2D. Watersheds And River Basins

Preparation:

Tasks to be completed:

Materials:

For this activity, you will be using the streamer application from USGS. Click here to open the application.

Vocabulary:

Headwaters – a river’s source of water; starting point of a river
Continental Divide – a drainage divide on a continent where precipitation and water flow on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the precipitation on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea
Estuary – the tidal mouth of a large river, where the tide meets the stream
Tributary Streams – streams that streams flow into one another to make larger streams. Larger streams join to form rivers.
Ridgeline – is the top edge of the mountain that divides one watershed from another
River Basin – an area of land where precipitation collects and drains off into a large river
Watershed – an area of land where precipitation collects and drains off into a common outlet, such as into a river, stream, lake, ocean or other body of water

Resources:

Join the conversation

Ambrette Gilkey - January 6, 2021

Streamers is a helpful and fun tool to help understand a watershed. Highlighting where I live helps me to see my relationship to the rest of the watershed and relate to the larger perspective. I can see this being a very helpful tool with students understanding a difficult somewhat abstract topic when trying to explain that our water goes to the ocean. I know that understanding that we are part of a larger picture is sometimes easy to forget and difficult to learn at first. I like how this will tie into seeing how pollutants will affect a larger area than we think.
I also appreciate the visual pattern of the watershed and would like to relate that to other similar patterns.