The short tale of the water cycle

Recently, in Mrs. Carter's Earth Science class, each student wrote a short story to display their understanding of the water cycle by explaining how one drop of water could move throughout the cycle.  They also had to explain the different processes that changed the drop of water from one step in the cycle to another step. Every student in the class was assigned a certain step to write about.  They used dice to determine which step would come next (each step was assigned a number).  The students named their water drops, and the class as a whole decided on names for the aunt, uncle, town, dog, etc.  Mrs. Carter stated, "The students seemed to really enjoy it.  I think they liked the creative element."

Here is one of the students essays, written by Caleb W., chosen for the blog by Mrs. Carter.

I was sitting in Earth Science class on a mild fall day, when a cry of help caught my attention.  No one else in the room could hear this faint sound except for me.  I continued taking notes but the noise got so loud I couldn’t help myself, so I raised my hand and said, “Excuse me Mrs. Carter, but I must leave.” She replied with “Where are you going, and do you have a hall pass?”  My response to that was, “Out to do some scientific investigation.”  I waited for her to reply and it came automatically, “Sure thing, just be quick.”

When I got outside the window, I saw what was making the noise: it was a water droplet.  So I said what any other person would say to a water droplet, “My name is Caleb.  What is yours?”  "Dippy Drippy, now please help me. I’m changing from a liquid to a gas because the sun is evil.”  I stood there and watched him going up into the sky saying, “I’m sorry I can’t help you.  You are in a continuous cycle called The Water Cycle and shouldn’t you know that by now? Bye.”

This was not the last time I saw Dippy Drippy.  After Drippy evaporated he began to condense, because the higher he got, the colder he got.  He found other droplets formed a cloud together.  Dippy Drippy and his friends got too heavy and fell back to earth, landing on Money Ball Road, between Aunt Martha and Uncle Ruckus’s house.  Drippy began to cling to other water droplets and run off into Lake Houston, but not without some trouble. He narrowly dodged some "business" freshly finished by Bell, Uncle Ruckus’s dog.  When I saw Drippy again, ironically, he had made it to the lake and was already beginning to evaporate and condense again.

Dippy Drippy fell back to the Earth, but this time as snow, which landed one hundred miles north of Norton, in a town called Salem.  Drippy fell in front of the restaurant Red Lobster and stayed there for a very long time.  Drippy was there until the snow began to melt, which led him to Cloud Central with all his other friends from the run-off.

Dippy Drippy liked being in the parking lot of Cloud Central, until the day he was slipped on by a pedestrian.  The unaware kidnapper carried Dippy Drippy toward his house and dumped him off in a field.  Drippy enjoyed the field until he began to sink, and sink, and sink, all the way until he hit an underground reservoir.

Most people would think Drippy’s story was over by now but it wasn’t.  Dippy come upon a spring which exposed him to light for the first time in three years.  Dippy Drippy was excited and grateful for being out in the open again.  Drippy began to feel hot, then lighter followed by a tingly sensation which could be caused by only one thing, evaporation.

“Mr. Williams, Pay attention!” said Mrs. Carter to me.  “Sorry I didn’t get much sleep last night, so I was trying to catch up.”  Mrs. Carter replied with “Well you know here at Cotton Candy High school we have a zero-tolerance policy for sleeping in class.”  My answer to that was “I know," I apologized, "but you won’t believe the dream I just had.”

Introduction written by: Mazzy T.
Short story written by: Caleb W.