Energy and the Water Cycle Project

This week I assigned a project to my students on potential and kinetic energy.  The project came from a set of questions they were answering after they read a short 2 pages on mechanical energy.  I decided to elaborate on the questions and turn it in to a project.  I am hoping that the students do a good job with the project! I tried to provide the students a few ways of presenting their project.  They can do it as a story, or complete it in a more straight forward paragraph.  Each will be accompanied by a picture they create.  They may create their project by hand or by using a computer.  Here is a brief description of the project. 

Students will be using the concepts of potential and kinetic energy to describe the path a water droplet travels through the water cycle.  Students will need to describe the path of the drop of water from the time it falls from the sky as a raindrop until it reaches the ocean.  In their description, students need to include a swift mountain stream, a still lake, a slow-moving river, and a waterfall.  Students will need to incorporate how the potential energy and kinetic energy of the drop changes along the path.  Make sure to include ALL parts.  Each student has 2 options as to how they would like to present their water droplet's journey. 

Option 1: Using a plain piece of white paper, illustrate the entire journey of the water droplet.  On a separate piece of paper, neatly write or type your water droplet's story; be sure to include all the requirements of the journey and what is happening to the potential and kinetic energy at each point along the journey. 

Option 2: Using a plain piece of white paper, illustrate the journey of the water droplet as a comic strip story.  Include each separate "destination" as its own box on the comic.  In each box, creatively include a description of the journey and what is happening to the potential and kinetic energy. If you would like to do this digitally, let me know and I will give you access to BitStrips.