The Water Wall at Juniper Basin Station

A Water Study at Juniper Basin

Juniper Basin Research Station sits in a dry desert region. A team studies Earth systems and shares science displays with visiting students. The team cannot collect enough water at the station to represent all of Earth's water, so it uses equal model units instead.

For one Earth-water model, the team represents all of Earth's water with 1,000 equal units. Rounded estimates divide the model into 970 units of salt water and 30 units of fresh water. Salt water includes the water in oceans and seas. Fresh water includes water in places such as ice, underground stores, lakes, and rivers.

The team also divides the 30 fresh water units into three storage groups. In this model, 20 units are frozen in ice caps and glaciers, 9 units are underground, and 1 unit is in lakes, rivers, soil, and the air. These groups describe where the model's fresh water is stored; they are not extra water added to the total.

The team plans a new display for the station visitor room. Students will compare the amounts with bars, then check whether smaller models keep the same shares. A model can use a different total and still show the same distribution if each kind of water is changed by the same scale factor.