Water on Earth

Water on Earth

Pencil and paperOnline interactive
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about use of water.
Use the graphs to help answer the following questions.
diagram of water use on Earth

Question 1Change answer

a)  What percentage (%) of all water is freshwater?  %

Question 1Change answer

b)  Where is most of the freshwater that we can use found?

Question 2Change answer

c)  We use water for drinking. What are two other ways that we can use water?
1.
2.
Task administration: 
This task can be completed with pencil and paper or online.
Level:
3
Curriculum info: 
Science, Communicating in science, Planet Earth
Keywords: 
Earth systems, water, water use, pie graphs, graph interpretation
Description of task: 
For this task students are provided with three pie graphs on water. Students are required to interpret these to answer four short answer questions.
Curriculum Links: 
Science capabilities
The capabilities focus is brought about by the conversations you have and the questions you ask.
 
Capability: Interpret representations
This resource provides opportunities to discuss the graph we choose to show data depends on the type of data collected  (see Tables and graphs).
 
Science capabilities: 
Interpret representations
Answers/responses: 
 

Y6 (05/1999)
a) 3 moderate
b) Lakes difficult
c) Any 2 of:

  • Washing.
  • Cooking.
  • Cleaning teeth.
  • Irrigation of paddocks.
  • Cleaning cars/houses.
  • Watering pot plants/gardens.
  • Flushing toilet.
  • Any other plausible answer.
 2 correct – moderate

1 correct – very easy
Diagnostic and formative information: 
   

Common error

b)

18% of students gave the answer, "Ice caps and glaciers".
14% of students gave the answer, "Oceans".