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Geography · Grade 3

Rivers, Lakes and Water Use

Rivers flow downhill from a source to a mouth, gathering water from a whole watershed on the way. Learners follow a raindrop from an Illinois field to the Gulf of Mexico, meet Illinois's big rivers (Mississippi, Illinois, Ohio, Rock and Kaskaskia), study how people use rivers and Lake Michigan for drinking water, farming and shipping, and decide how to keep water clean for everyone downstream.

  • 4 lessons
  • About 75 minutes
  • Rivers and water check: 9 questions
  • Ways to answer: fill in the blanks, choose an answer, highlight a text, pin a map, match pairs and type a number
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What learners will discover

  • Explain that rivers flow downhill from a source to a mouth, and that a watershed is all the land that drains into a river.
  • Identify the major rivers of Illinois and describe where each one flows.
  • Describe how people use rivers and lakes, including Lake Michigan as a drinking-water source, and read simple water-use data.
  • Explain how actions upstream affect water downstream and choose ways to keep water clean.

Lessons

  1. Rivers flow downhill 5 steps3 practiceabout 18 min
  2. Rivers of Illinois 5 steps3 practiceabout 18 min
  3. How we use rivers and lakes 5 steps3 practiceabout 19 min
  4. Everyone lives downstream 5 steps2 practiceabout 20 min
  5. Rivers and water check 9 questions at the end

Keep exploring

Games to practice with

  • Globe ExplorerSpin a real 3D globe, flip to the flat map, and find continents, oceans and countries.
  • Pin the PlanetDrag the pin onto wonders, cities and exact latitude and longitude points.
  • Mapmaker QuestFollow directions to make a map, then read its legend, compass rose and scale.

More 3rd grade geography

Guide for grown-ups