Trace the path of precipitation through a watershed, explaining how land shape directs water flow toward a shared body of water.
A watershed is all the land area that drains rain and melting snow into the same river, lake, or ocean outlet. Picture a raindrop landing on a hillside: gravity pulls it downhill, it joins tiny trickles, the trickles join small streams, the streams join a larger creek, and eventually that creek reaches a river that empties into a lake or the ocean. The whole area of land that feeds that river is its watershed.
Watersheds explain why something that happens far upstream, like a factory spill or a farm using fertilizer, can affect water quality many miles away, downstream, even in a completely different town. Everyone living in a watershed shares the same water system, whether they realize it or not.
Mastery looks like: They can describe how a raindrop travels through a watershed to a shared outlet and explain why upstream activity affects downstream water.
Common stumbles: Thinking a watershed is a body of water itself rather than the land area that drains into one; missing that upstream events affect downstream areas.