Water is the remarkable liquid which makes our Blue Planet unique, and makes the Earth able to support life. Designed to complement your classroom science program with language arts, music, drawing, and math, this story and set of activities will add a cross-curricular dimension to young students' discovery of water's many special properties.

Goals
This feature story, and the following set of activities are designed to help Grade 2 students:

• Demonstrate awareness of the forms in which water are present in the environment, and move through it (the water cycle)
• Investigate the visible effects of water in the environment
• Describe the ways in which living things need – and are affected by – water
• Understand the many ways in which clean water is vital for meeting the needs of humans
• Describe ways in which people can conserve water and keep it clean

Focus
Storytelling that Illustrates Water Concepts. This resource is built around a lively, rhyming water story that features a character named Morphie Raindrop. Reading Morphie’s Great Water Ride Adventure will help you give young children both a delightful narrative context for scientific inquiry, and a set of “water words” for vocabulary building.

Available as an illustrated web adventure for young readers, or as a downloadable read-along rhyming story for the classroom, Morhpie’s story shows young children that although we find water in many places in our lives, it far from being ordinary. Spunky hero Morphie tells his listeners that water is “wonderful stuff,” an important part of our environment, our health, and many important things that we do.

Morphie (named after his ability to change shape) shows readers how water in its never-ending cycle is part of weather, waterways, habitats, agriculture, manufacturing, generating electricity, living at home – and even rainbows. He also reminds us that fresh water is precious, so we should take good care of it – of him – to be sure to have the healthy, fresh water we need for the future.

Water: Selected Integrated Learning Expectations
Ontario Science and Technology Curriculum Grade 2

Life Systems:	* ask questions about and identify some needs of different animals which they are familiar, and explore possible answers to these questions and ways of meeting these needs (e.g., in what ways do different animals need water?)
Matter and Materials:	* describe, using their observations, the characteristics of the three states of water, and identify the conditions that cause changes from one state to another (e.g., water turns to ice when placed in a freezer)
Energy and Control:	* recognize that it is the movement of water that produces energy, and that water is not by itself an energy source * recognize that moving water can be a source of energy for electrical power.
Structures and Mechanisms: (e.g., water in its different forms)	* describe structural patterns (of water) through movement
Earth and Space Systems:	* describe the different uses of water and identify some that are essential for maintaining our health (e.g., clean drinking and washing water) * recognize that water is an increasingly scarce resource in many parts of the world, and that the water we use is part of our environment and should be used wisely