Donnette's fifth-graders played a game called the Incredible Water Journey as a way of learning that the water cycle is not a perfect circle. The game provided nine stations, each representing a place where water could be located (ocean, soil, animals, glaciers, ground water, etc.). There was a large cardboard die at each station. On each of the six faces on the nine dice there was a different place a water droplet might go. For example, at the glaciers station (see inset photo, above) the die had options for places a water droplet could go from a glacier–cloud, ground water, and rivers. All of the dice also had one or more faces called "stay."

To play the game, students pretended that they were water droplets caught up in the water cycle. They rolled the dice and moved from station to station recording their journey whether they stayed at a station or moved on. In the end, most found themselves stuck in the ocean. The die at the ocean station had "stay" on four faces because it is not easy for a water droplet to escape from the ocean. The only way to get out of the ocean station was to roll the die and land on "clouds," because evaporation is the only way for a water droplet to get out of the ocean.

Shown above: Isabella rolls the die at the oceans station as others are waiting to take their turn at this busy station.