What Is a Drought?

Lab Brief #4

🎯 Your mission

Predict it first. Then prove yourself right (or wrong).

⚡ The twist

Today's mountain was yesterday's ocean floor.

What you'll learn

A drought happens when an area gets very little rain for a long time.

Key words

rain
Water drops that fall from clouds down to the ground.

Make a hypothesis first

Guess: where will the water go first?

Say your guess out loud — then find out if you were right.

Get ready

🧰 What you need

water
plastic tray

⚠️ Safety first

Mop up spills straight away so nobody slips, and keep liquids away from sockets.

Step 1 of 4 · Read

Look at the new words. Can you say each one?

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Make a mini water cycle: put warm water in a bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and place an ice cube on top. Watch what happens.

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Watch carefully. What happens?

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Draw and write about what you learned.

Question 1 of 2

What makes rain?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 2 of 2

What happens when the sun heats water?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Mind = blown

🌋 There are 1,500 active volcanoes on Earth right now.

Nice work!

You got 0 of 2 right.

All lessons

🎯

Next Smart Experiment

We'll pick an experiment that matches exactly how you're thinking right now.

✨ More to explore

🌍 Where you see this in real life: This is shaping the ground you walk on, slowly, every single day.

🏆 Stretch challenge (try it this week): Find a rock outside and try to guess how old it is.

👨‍👩‍👧 For the dinner table: “What's the slowest change you can think of?”

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