Have you ever thought about the journey a raindrop takes? This mini spark shows you that path through the United States that a raindrop will follow to get to the sea.

Spark your thinking!

1. Set up your social studies mini spark recording page #46: A Raindrop’s Journey
2. Read these 3 paragraphs. Write a summary of a raindrop’s journey using 5 bullet points.

You may think every drop of rain falling from the sky, or each glass of water you drink, is brand new, but it has always been here, and is a part of the water cycle.  At its most basic, the water cycle is how water continuously moves from the ground to the atmosphere and back again.  As it moves through this cycle, it changes forms.  Water is the only substance that naturally exists in three states on Earth – solid, liquid, and gas.

Over 96% of total global water is in the ocean, so let’s start there.  Energy from the sun causes water on the surface to evaporate into water vapor – a gas.  This invisible vapor rises into the atmosphere, where the air is colder, and condenses into clouds.  Air currents move these clouds all around the earth.

Water drops form in clouds, and the drops then return to the ocean or land as precipitation, often rainfall.   When it rains, the raindrops fall to the ground, and run off into a lake or river, which flows back into the ocean, where it starts the process again.

3. This website allows for you to click anywhere on the map to drop a raindrop and follow its journey to the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic or the Pacific Oceans! Once you click, you’ll get a bird’s eye view of the path the raindrop takes!

Try it out! Set your timer for three minutes and spend time exploring the site. At the end of the three minutes, write two sentences about what you noticed about the raindrop’s journey.

4. In the top right corner of your search, you are able to see the actual distances that the raindrop is traveling, and along what path.   Choose a location to drop your raindrop, look at the data in the top right corner, and record all of the waterways and the distances on your recording sheet.

5. Find 3 spots on the map where the raindrop makes a journey to different ending point: Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic or the Pacific Oceans. Record these three starting locations on your recording page.

6. Share your social studies mini spark recording page with your teacher/EY coordinator.

                                                                          Source: IFL Science

The Internet has a new favorite interactive map system!

ORBIS, the Stanford geospatial network model of the Roman world, allows you to check how long it would take you to travel from location to location during Roman times.

It’s customizable too! In the unlikely event that you were transported back to 200 BCE and yet somehow the 4G network traveled back in time with you, thanks to these maps you’d be able to calculate how long it would take you to get from Londinium to Corinthus by ox, or Augusta Treverorum to Alexandria as part of a military march.

As well as time, the map, which is of course based on historical evidence, shows you how much each journey would cost.

“Conventional maps that represent this world as it appears from space signally fail to capture the severe environmental constraints that governed the flows of people, goods and information,” Stanford wrote at the time of the release of the first version of ORBIS. “Cost, rather than distance, is the principal determinant of connectivity.”

We thought we’d have a look at how long it would take us to get from Londinium to Ierusalem, to ask them a few questions about what made them eventually change the I in their name to a J.

We gave the parameters that we would be traveling by donkey (as well as boat where necessary) and during the winter. According to Google, if we floored it and didn’t need things like sleep, we could arrive by car in 52 hours, or a much nicer 6-8 hours by plane. But, we know that that the journey would take a lot longer in Roman times:

“The Fastest journey from Londinium to Ierusalem in January takes 53.5 days, covering 5,433 kilometers [3,375 miles]. Prices in denarii, based on the use of a faster sail ship and a civilian river boat (where applicable), and on these road options:

Per kilogram of wheat (by donkey): 22.74
Per kilogram of wheat (by wagon): 27.45
Per passenger in a carriage: 1897.51″

If you were to select the cheapest route, it would take you 98.4 days to complete a 6,129-kilometer (3,303-mile) journey. However, you would save yourself nearly 1,000 denarii per passenger, and 7 denarii per kilogram of wheat. And is it really a holiday if you aren’t shipping a wagonload of wheat back with you as a souvenir?

Check out the map for yourself, it’s pretty cool to play with!

In the comments below, let us know what you discovered!