Below are ideas for extending this topic beyond the activity and exploration you just completed.

• Lesson Assessment and Answer Key
• Activity: Give your students a hand-on feel for underground water by setting up an Aquifer Station.
• Videos: Two short videos expand your students' knowledge of water underground.
• Readings: How is water from wells connected to Abraham Lincoln and earthquakes?
• Read & Discuss: Can you locate water with a forked stick?

Activity: Aquifer Station

This model aquifer made of aquarium gravel in a plastic shoebox gives your students an opportunity to:

• dig a pond,
• drill a well,
• and pump water from their well using a soap dispenser.
  

Follow these simple instructions for setting up an Aquifer Station. The last page of this printout provides instructions for student experimentation.

Videos

• Learn more about water underground and the unseen aquifers under your feet in a colorful animated video from KQED Quest. This link also connects to free extension activities, discussion questions, and links —all aligned with Next Generation Science Standards.

• See how wells are drilled, tour a giant water tower, and learn about groundwater from a hydrogeologist in this video from Into the Outdoors, a website for students and teachers focusing on the natural world.

Readings

• In California, farmers pump water out of the aquifer to irrigate thirsty crops. Some scientists think that using so much groundwater may be making mountains grow taller and causing small earthquakes. Read all about it in an article from Newsela (Registration is free and you can choose the reading level.)

• American Groundwater Trust provides a short reading about how groundwater pollution changed the life of our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. (This one is for advanced readers.)

Read & Discuss: Dowsing

For thousands of years, people have used forked sticks to “feel” for water under the ground. This is called dowsing, or sometimes water witching.

Click here to read about dowsing. Then discuss these questions with your class:

• Could dowsing for water really work? Why do you think that?

• Can you think of a test or experiment that would prove dowsing works? Or an experiment that would prove it doesn't work?