Water helps to sustain individual species and entire ecosystems. On March 22nd, celebrate World Water Day by discussing the importance of this most basic element with your students.

Ask your class to think about where their water originates. Show them a map of their watershed. Describe the pathway of the water as it flows from its origin to their kitchen faucets, and explain that water often has to travel great distances before reaching its destination.

Demonstrate how water gathers loose materials on its way to the ocean or reservoir by simulating a watershed in the classroom or play space. Using a 3-inch high baking pan and dirt, create a landscape that approximates an incline running downward from a hillside to the ocean. Have students take a sample of the clean water at the start and compare it to the murky water that lands in a pool at the end of the waterway.

Discuss how the roots of trees and plants that grow alongside rivers hold in the soil and prevent it from being swept away by moving water. Simulate another environment with sod as the sides of the river. Have your class line their simulated watersheds with sod and measure how much mud ends up in the water. Collect water samples from each watershed and create a chart to determine which water samples are muddiest.

Discover how trees help keep water clean by holding soil in their root systems and minimizing erosion.

Read Manny Manatee and the Mystery of the Murky Water to help Manny figure out why the river in Belize where he lives has become muddy.

There's a reason that poison dart frogs can't survive in Antarctica and why polar bears don't live in the rainforest. Both temperature and rainfall determine the range within an ecosystem that species inhabit.

Have your students compare the weather in their city to that of rainforests by recording and analyzing data about the annual temperatures and rainfall in their geographical area with that of an area in Brazil's Amazon rainforest. Be sure to include information for the months of December, February, April, June, August and October. Graph the results and analyze the differences in rainfall and temperature. Have your students draw conclusions about growing seasons and the lifecycles of different animals and plants in the two locations. Discuss what would happen if the temperature levels for the two places were reversed.

Learn more about how rainfall affects the diversity of life in a rainforest.

Download rainfall data for Brazil to be used in your comparison.

Help your class conduct an experiment to understand the importance of water within an ecosystem. By isolating water, your students will determine how much the loss of that one factor impacts the entire ecological system as well as individual species.

In groups of three or four, students design terrariums using locally obtained soil and plants that represent local ecosystems. Each terrarium should have equal amounts of soil and the same plants.

Each group adds different amounts of water to their terrariums over a two-week period. Some terrariums receive only a teaspoon full of water each day, others get five teaspoons of water, or a cup of water or none at all. After two weeks, students report on the conditions in their different terrariums.

As a class, discuss how rainfall affected the health of the ecosystem. What would be affected in your local neighborhood if no rain fell for a year? What if it rained everyday for a month, would things change in your area?

Discover how plants and animals are dependent on water for survival.

Download instructions for making a terrarium in your classroom.

Earth Day is an excellent opportunity to talk to your class about the importance of helping to protect the environment. Don't let April 22nd sneak up on you. Visit the Rainforest Alliance Learning Site for creative learning activities.

Encourage your students to think about how they can help protect ecosystems and the people and wildlife that depend on them by holding an Adopt-A-Rainforest fundraiser, buying products that are harvested sustainably, recycling and more.

The American Water Environmental Grant Program supports community environmental projects (including cleanups and restoration projects) that work to improve, restore and protect watersheds. Deadline for applying is April 13, 2007.

The Melinda Gray Ardia Environmental Foundation funds environmental education grants for the development, implementation and/or field testing of curricula that empower youth to become involved in solving environmental and social issues. The completed application must be postmarked by April 9, 2007.

The Young Naturalist Awards, a program of the American Museum of Natural History and sponsored by Alcoa Foundation, is an essay contest for students in grades 7 - 12. Students must plan and conduct their own research on a topic of their choice. Two winners from each grade level will receive a cash scholarship for $500 to $2,500, an invitation to attend the awards ceremony in New York City, and their essays will be published on the museum's Web site. Teachers of the top twelve winners will receive book collections for their class libraries. Essays are due by April 1, 2007.

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