1. Have students visit the TerraServer website (http://terraserver.com) to view aerial photographs and topographic maps of their watershed.

2. Assign Lesson 3 Extension: Investigating Streamflow in Michigan’s Rivers (on the MEECS Water Quality CD) to advanced students.

3. Reinforce this lesson by having students visit the web modules Watershed Concept and Aquatic Ecosystems: Wetlands developed by Michigan Technological University (http://techalive.mtu.edu/meec_index.htm).

4. Use a commercial stream table to demonstrate stream development, or create your own stream table using diatomaceous earth or sand placed in a rectangular container, about 3’ x 1’. Set up a “drip” system for gradual river cutting using a ring stand with a beaker of colored water (colored water is easier to see and washes out).

The water drips gradually and cuts a river. Pose various hypotheses for students to investigate: what will happen if I increase the slope of the stream table (put a book under one end)? What will happen if I increase the volume or speed of water in the stream?

5. Play “Raging River,” in which students model the confluence of tributaries into rivers. Take a piece of graph paper and draw 3-5 dots evenly spaced along the top row of the paper (representing different headwater streams or water sources). Each student claims a water source and rolls the die to determine the path of the flow of their water source or tributary, marking lines down the paper: roll a 1 or 2 draw a line diagonally left, roll a 3 or 4 draw a line straight down, and roll a 5 or 6 draw a line diagonally right. Keep rolling the die and drawing the paths of each tributary, showing how they merge into rivers. Once two tributaries merge, only one student rolls the die. It is a fun and visual activity to give students the ideas of first, second, and third order streams.