NCERT Solutions Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water the Essence of Life

F R E E S T U D Y M AT E R I A L F O R E V E R Y S T U D E N T

CLASS 5 · THE WORLD AROUND US

NCERT Solutions

Chapter 1: Water — The Essence
of Life

NCERT Textbook — Our Wondrous World

BOOK PAGES SECTIONS QUESTIONS MEDIUM

3 – 20 18 38 English

Solutions, notes, sample papers & more at 44 pages

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

CLASS 5 · THE WORLD AROUND US · OUR WONDROUS WORLD

NCERT Solutions — Chapter 1: Water — The Essence of
Life
Chapter 1 of Our Wondrous World opens Unit 1, Life Around Us. Afreen and Jyoti watch raindrops slide down a
window and ask where all that water comes from and where it goes. Following their question, the chapter
takes you through the forms of water, the water cycle, groundwater and surface water, the rivers of
India, and the plants and animals that live in freshwater. It carries 10 Activities, two Discuss boxes, an
Observing Changes table, a Life in Water table and the closing Let us reflect set of 7 items. There is no
separate exercise at the end — the questions are spread through the chapter.

TEXTBOOK BOOK PAGES

Our Wondrous World (Class 5) 3 – 20

SECTIONS QUESTIONS

18 38

MEDIUM

English

In-text Question — Page 3
Afreen and Jyoti at the window

Q1 “Where do you think all this water comes from, and where does it go?” asked
Afreen.

The rain comes from the clouds, and the clouds are made from water that rose up from
the oceans, rivers and lakes. After the rain falls, the water flows back into the ground, into
rivers and into the sea. Water keeps going round and round like this.
Follow one raindrop, step by step.

1. The Sun heats the water in the sea, in rivers and in ponds.
2. Some of that water turns into water vapour — water in the form of an invisible gas — and
rises into the air.
3. High up, the air is cold. The vapour cools and becomes very tiny drops. Millions of these
drops together make a cloud.
4. When the drops grow big and heavy, they fall down. That is the rain on Afreen's window.
5. The rainwater runs into drains, ponds and rivers. Some of it soaks into the soil. The rivers
carry it to the sea.
6. The Sun heats it again, and the whole journey starts over.

Page 1 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Clouds form
Sun

Rain falls
Water
vapour

Sea, river, pond
Water flows back

The same water goes round and round: sea → sky → land → sea. This is the water cycle.

Why it happens: Heat makes water rise as vapour. Cold makes vapour turn back
into drops. The Sun gives the heat and the sky gives the cold, so the water can never
stop moving.

Did you know? The Earth does not make new water. The rain on your window today
may be water that was once in a river, in a cloud, or even in a glass someone drank
from long ago.

Discuss — Page 4
Ocean water

DISCUSS

Q1 Do you think we can drink the water present in the oceans?

No, we cannot drink ocean water. Ocean water is salty — it has a large amount of salt mixed
in it.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Here is what happens if someone drinks it.

1. The salt goes into the body along with the water.
2. The body has to throw that extra salt out.
3. To do that, the body uses up even more water than was drunk.
4. So the person feels more thirsty, not less.

Why it happens: Our body needs freshwater — water without salt. All living things
do. Look at page 4 of your book. If all the water on Earth filled a 200 ml glass, the
freshwater would be only 5 ml — one teaspoon. The rest is salty ocean water, which
is why freshwater must never be wasted.

Try this at home: Stir a spoon of salt into a glass of water and taste one drop. That
is a small taste of what sea water is like — and sea water is even saltier.

Q2 What can ocean water be used for?

Ocean water cannot be drunk, but it is very useful in many other ways.

To make salt. Sea water is spread in shallow flat beds called salt pans. The Sun dries the
water away and leaves the salt behind. The salt pans of Gujarat are one of India's largest salt-
producing areas.
As a home for sea life. Fish, crabs, prawns, turtles and whales live in the ocean. Fishing
families earn their living from it.
For travel and trade. Big ships carry goods from one country to another across the ocean.
For the water cycle. Most of the vapour that makes our rain clouds rises from the ocean.
The salt is left behind, so the rain that falls is fresh.
For work and play. Beaches bring visitors, and sea water is used for cooling in some large
factories and power plants.

Why the rain is not salty: When sea water evaporates, only the water rises as
vapour. The salt stays behind in the sea. So the clouds — and the rain — are made of
freshwater.

Did you know? Ocean water can be turned into drinking water by removing the salt,
but this needs big machines and a lot of energy, so it is expensive. Saving the
freshwater we already have is far easier.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

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Activity 1 — Page 5
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Sources of Water
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ACTIVITY

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Where can we find freshwater? Identify the different freshwater sources from the
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Q1

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images given below and write their names. (Eight pictures around the words
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as
‘Sources of Water’.)

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Sources
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The eight pictures printed around the words “Sources of Water” on page 5, redrawn here

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as simple sketches. Write the name of each source on the line below its picture.

m as e
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a s emANSWER
agl
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Look at the eight pictures around the words Sources of Water. Here is each one, read row by

m a s
co agl
row, left to right.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

WHERE THE WHAT THE PICTURE SHOWS NAME TO
PICTURE IS WRITE

Top row, left A small round water body with grass and reeds all Pond
around it

Top row, middle Big waves rolling onto a sandy beach Sea (ocean)

Top row, right Blocks of ice floating in very cold water Glacier / ice cap

Middle row, left Bare mountains with still water in front of them Lake

Middle row, right A cut through the ground — soil on top, then a layer of Groundwater
water, then pebbles

Bottom row, left A winding stream of water running across green land River

Bottom row, middle A round brick structure with a rope and a bucket Well

Bottom row, right A dark cloud with drops falling from it Rain

One picture is different from the rest. The picture in the top middle is the sea. Sea water is
salty. So it is not a source of freshwater. All the other seven are.

Why these are freshwater sources: Ponds, lakes and rivers hold water on the
surface of the land. Glaciers and ice caps hold freshwater in solid form, as ice. Rain
brings freshwater down from the clouds. Wells bring up groundwater. And
groundwater itself is rain that soaked into the soil and got stored below.

Sort them into three groups: water on the land — pond, lake, river; water under the
land — groundwater, well; water from the sky and in frozen form — rain, glacier.

In-text Question — Page 5
Water has Different Forms

Q1 Jyoti was curious, “Is there water in the air too? And is snow a form of water?”.

Yes to both. There is water in the air, and snow is one of the forms of water.
Water in the air. The air around you always has some water in it. You cannot see it, because it is
there as water vapour — water in the form of a gas. You can prove it is there:

Page 5 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

1. Take a steel glass and put ice cubes in it.
2. Wait for two or three minutes.
3. Tiny drops appear on the outside of the glass.
4. Those drops are the water vapour of the air, cooled by the cold glass and turned back into
water.

Snow. Snow is water in its solid form, just like ice. When water vapour high up in the sky
becomes very cold, it turns straight into soft white flakes of ice and falls down as snow.

FORM OF WATER WHAT IT IS LIKE YOU HAVE SEEN IT AS

Solid Hard, keeps its shape Ice cube, snow, hail

Liquid Flows, takes the shape of the pot Rain, river water, drinking water

Vapour (gas) Invisible, spreads through the air Water in the air, steam over hot dal

Why it is still water: Ice, water and vapour are the same thing wearing three
different coats. Heat it and it becomes vapour. Cool it and it becomes water again.
Cool it much more and it becomes ice.

Activity 2 — Page 6
Ice cubes in a steel glass

ACTIVITY

Q1 Take a steel glass. Put some ice cubes in it. Observe the small water droplets
forming on the glass. (a) Where do these water droplets come from?

They come from the air around the glass. The air holds water vapour that we cannot see. The
cold glass cools that vapour, and it turns back into tiny drops of water on the outside of the
glass.
Do it step by step and watch.

1. Take a dry steel glass. Wipe it and check — the outside is dry.
2. Put four or five ice cubes in it.
3. Wait for two minutes. Do not touch it.
4. Now look at the outside of the glass. It is covered with tiny water drops. Touch it — your
finger gets wet.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Ice cubes inside

Water vapour
in the air Drops form here,
on the outside

The glass has no hole. The water came from
outside, not from inside.

Invisible water vapour touches the cold glass, cools, and becomes drops you can see.

Why it happens: Warm air can hold water vapour. Cold air cannot hold as much.
When the warm air of the room touches the very cold steel, it cools at once, and the
vapour it was carrying turns back into liquid water. This changing of vapour into
water is called condensation.

Check it yourself: Keep a second glass beside it with ordinary room-temperature
water in it. That glass stays dry outside. Only the cold glass gets wet — so the drops
must be coming from the air, not leaking through the steel.

Q2 (b) What happens to the ice cubes after they are left in the glass for some time?

The ice cubes melt. They slowly change into liquid water, and after some time the glass
has water in it instead of ice.
What you will see, in order:

1. First the sharp corners of the cubes become round and smooth.
2. Then the cubes get smaller and a little water collects at the bottom.
3. The cubes float in this water and keep shrinking.
4. In the end there is no ice left — only cold water.

Page 7 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Ice (solid) + heat from the room → Water (liquid)

Why it happens: The room is warmer than the ice. Heat always moves from the
warmer thing to the colder thing. So heat from the air and from the glass goes into
the ice. That heat makes the ice melt — it changes from the solid form to the liquid
form. It is still the same water; only its form has changed.

Try this: Put one ice cube in a plate in the shade and one in the sunlight. The one in
the sunlight melts much faster, because it gets heat more quickly.

Q3 (c) If we heat water, what will happen to it?

The water becomes hot, then it starts to boil, and it changes into steam — that is, into
water vapour. The water in the pan slowly gets less and less.
Watch a pan of water on the stove.

1. The water gets warm, then hot.
2. Small bubbles begin to rise from the bottom.
3. Soon the water bubbles fast all over. This is boiling.
4. A white misty cloud rises above the pan. That is steam — water vapour that has cooled a
little in the air.
5. If you keep the stove on, the water level in the pan goes down, because more and more
water is leaving as vapour.

Water (liquid) + heat → Water vapour (gas)

Why it happens: Heat gives the water enough energy to leave the pan and float
away in the air as a gas. Water does not need to boil to do this — wet clothes dry in
the sun in the same way, only much more slowly. Boiling is simply very fast
evaporation.

A safety note: Steam is much hotter than boiling water and can burn badly. Watch a
boiling pan from a distance, and only with an adult nearby.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

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In the above activity, what forms of water do you see?
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Q4

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Allg l forms of water — solid, liquid and vapour.
a three
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FORM WHERE YOU SEE IT IN THIS ACTIVITY WHAT CHANGED

a s em
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Solid The ice cubes put into the steel glass Water frozen hard

Liquid The melted water inside the glass, and the drops on the Ice melted; vapour

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outside condensed

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Vapour The invisible water in the air that made the drops; the steam Water

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(gas)

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Heat pushes it to the right. Cooling brings it
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back to the left.
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Why this matters: This one small activity shows the whole idea of the chapter.
Water can change its form and change back again. Nature does exactly the same
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thing on a huge scale, and we call it the water cycle.
m l as
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a Observing Changes — Page 6
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Fill the ‘I Observe’ column

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ACTIVITY

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Q1 Observing Changes — Activity: Ice melting. Write what you observe.

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The ice slowly loses its shape and turns into liquidawater.
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se and rounder, water collects below them, and in the end there is no ice left — only cool water. The
I observe:
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outside of the vessel becomes wet with tiny drops.

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Ice (solid) → Water (liquid) — this is called melting agl
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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why it happens: The air in the room is warmer than the ice. Heat moves from the
warm air into the cold ice. That heat breaks the ice out of its hard, fixed shape, and it
flows as liquid water.

Check it yourself: Mark the level of the water when all the ice has melted. Freeze it
again and you get ice back. Nothing is lost — only the form changes.

Q2 Observing Changes — Activity: Water boiling. Write what you observe.

I observe: Bubbles form at the bottom of the pan and rise to the top. The water moves about
and makes a sound. White steam rises above the pan. If the pan is left on the flame, the water
level slowly drops.

Water (liquid) → Water vapour (gas) — this is called evaporation

Why it happens: Heat from the flame gives the water enough energy to escape into
the air as an invisible gas. The bubbles are vapour forming inside the water itself. A
little above the pan the vapour meets cooler air, turns into very tiny drops, and that
is the white steam we can see.

Do this with an adult: Hold a dry steel plate high above the steam for a few
seconds. Drops appear on it. The vapour has become water again.

Q3 Observing Changes — Activity: Water in sunlight for three days. Write what you
observe.

I observe: The water level in the glass goes down a little every day. By the third day a clear part
of the glass is empty. Nothing has spilled and nothing has leaked — the water has gone into the
air.
How to do it neatly:

1. Fill a glass with water and mark the level with a marker or a strip of tape.
2. Keep it in a sunny place where it will not be disturbed.

Page 10 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

3. Mark the level again at the same time each day for three days.

DAY WHAT I SEE SAMPLE WATER LEVEL

Day 1 (start) Glass filled to the mark 200 ml

Day 2 Level a little below the mark about 185 ml

Day 3 Level lower still about 170 ml

The exact amounts will be different in your glass. A hot, dry, windy day takes more water away than a
cool, cloudy day.

Why it happens: Water does not need to boil to become vapour. The Sun's heat is
enough. Bit by bit, water from the top surface leaves as vapour and mixes into the
air. This slow change is evaporation. It is the very first step of the water cycle.

Compare the three rows: Melting needed a little heat. Boiling needed a lot of heat
and was fast. Sunlight needed only gentle heat but took three days. The change is
the same — only the speed is different.

Activity 3 — Page 7

Page 11 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Water Cycle in a sealed bag

ACTIVITY

Q1 Take a transparent bag. Use a marker to draw the sun, clouds, trees and arrows on
it as shown in the picture. Fill one-third of it with coloured water. Seal the bag
tightly to prevent any leaks. Place it in the sunlight. After a few hours, observe the
changes inside the bag.

The picture beside Activity 3 on page 7 — the sealed bag with the sun, clouds, tree and
arrows drawn on it with a marker, and coloured water filling the lower third.

What you will see: the water in the bag becomes warm; tiny drops appear on the inside of the
empty upper part of the bag; the drops grow bigger, join together, slide down the sides and fall
back into the coloured water. The bag is sealed, so no water is lost — the same water keeps

Page 12 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

going round.
How to do it:

1. Take a clear zip-lock bag.
2. With a marker, draw a sun in one top corner, a cloud beside it, a tree at the bottom, and
arrows going up on one side and down on the other.
3. Add a few drops of blue paint or food colour to about one cup of water. The colour makes the
water easy to see.
4. Fill the bag one-third full with this coloured water.
5. Press out the air and seal the bag tightly. Check for leaks by turning it over once.
6. Stick it on a sunny window with tape, with the water at the bottom.
7. Come back after three or four hours and look closely at the top half of the bag.

TIME WHAT YOU WILL SEE

After 1 hour The bag feels warm. The upper part looks slightly misty.

After 2–3 hours Many tiny clear drops sit on the inside of the upper part of the bag.

After 4 hours Some drops have joined into bigger drops. They slide down and drop back into
the coloured water.

Level of the coloured Almost the same as at the start — nothing escaped from the sealed bag.
water

Why it happens: Sunlight heats the coloured water. Some of it evaporates — it turns
into water vapour and rises into the empty part of the bag. The plastic at the top is
cooler than the water, so when the vapour touches it, it condenses into tiny drops.
When the drops become heavy they run down. That is exactly evaporation,
condensation and rain, happening inside a bag you can hold.

Notice one thing: the drops on the plastic are clear, not blue. The colour stayed
behind in the water. In the same way, the salt of the ocean stays behind and the rain
that falls is fresh.

Page 13 of 44

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
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Complete the table: I Observe — I Wonder — It is because of… (first row given:
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Water heats up / How does water heat up? / Sunlight; second row given: Water
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droplets formed inside the cover) a
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I OBSERVE I WONDER IT IS BECAUSE

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OF…
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Water heats up How does water heat Sunlight
up?

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Water droplets formed inside the

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cover
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a The table printed with Activity 3 on page 7, exactly as it stands in the book — the first

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row is filled in for you, and the rest is left blank.
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ANSWER a g
Here is the completed table. The first row is the book's example; the rest are filled from what
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actually happens in the bag.
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I OBSERVE I WONDER IT IS BECAUSE

a Water heats up
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Water droplets formed
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How did water reach the The warm water turned into water vapour and
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inside the cover
poured item
. rose up. The plastic at the top is cooler, so the
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at the bottom? vapour cooled and became drops. This is
condensation.

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The droplets grow bigger, Why do the drops not stay Small drops join to make big, heavy drops, and

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emit rain.
slide down the side and fall on top? heavy drops slide down. In the sky the same thing

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back into the water happens and we call

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Where did the water go and

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come back from? form — liquid to vapour and back to liquid.
much Nothing left the bag.
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The drops on the plastic are Why did the colour not go Only water evaporates. The colour was left

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clear, not blue up with the behind, just as sea salt is left behind when sea

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water evaporates.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The big idea: The bag is a tiny model of the Earth. The coloured water is the sea. The
sunny window is the Sun. The mist and drops at the top are the clouds. The drops
running down are the rain. Because nothing can get out of the sealed bag, you can
see clearly that water is never used up — it only travels and changes form.

Activity 4 — Page 9
Groundwater

ACTIVITY

Q1 Take a transparent glass. Fill half of it with soil. Slowly pour water into the soil using
a spoon. Observe what happens.

What you will see: the water does not stay on top. It disappears into the soil, the soil turns dark
and wet from the top downwards, and after a while water collects in the space at the very
bottom of the glass. If you keep pouring, the soil cannot take any more and water begins to
stand on the surface.
How to do it:

1. Take a clear glass or a cut plastic bottle so that you can see the sides.
2. Fill it half with dry garden soil. Do not press the soil down.
3. Take a spoonful of water and pour it slowly on the middle of the soil.
4. Watch the surface, and also watch the soil through the side of the glass.
5. Add one more spoon, wait, add another — about six to eight spoons in all.

STEP WHAT YOU OBSERVE

First spoon The water vanishes from the top almost at once. A small dark wet patch appears.

Next few spoons The dark wet line moves slowly downwards through the soil. Tiny bubbles come up.

After several Clear water begins to gather at the bottom of the glass, below the wet soil.
spoons

If you keep The soil is full. Water now stands on the surface and does not sink in — this is like
pouring waterlogging after heavy rain.

Page 15 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

1. Pour water slowly

2. It sinks through the soil

3. It collects at the
bottom
The same thing happens under a field when it rains
— the stored water is groundwater.

A glass of soil is a small model of the ground under your feet.

Why it happens: Soil looks solid, but it is made of countless small grains with tiny
gaps between them. Those gaps are full of air. When water is poured in, it pushes
the air out — that is why bubbles come up — and takes its place. Pulled down by its
own weight, the water keeps moving from gap to gap, deeper and deeper, until it
reaches a layer it cannot pass and gathers there.

This is groundwater. The water that gets stored deep under the ground in exactly
this way is called groundwater. Wells, borewells, tube wells and handpumps are
made to bring it back up for us to use.

Activity 5 — Page 9

Page 16 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Groundwater recharge

ACTIVITY

Q1 Tick the image that will help in groundwater recharge. — Concrete road ☐ Green
lawn ☐ Paved area ☐

Concrete road Green lawn Paved area

The three pictures printed with Activity 5 on page 9, redrawn here as simple sketches,
with the tick box under each one.

Tick the middle picture — the Green lawn.

PICTURE WHAT ITS SURFACE IS WHERE THE RAIN GOES TICK?
LIKE

Concrete Hard, smooth, sealed tar and Runs off the road straight into drains ✗
road cement

Green lawn Soft soil covered with grass, Soaks in through the grass and soil, down ✓
with a big tree to the groundwater

Paved area Stone slabs laid tightly over Runs off the slabs; only a little seeps ✗
the ground through the joints

Why the lawn wins: Rainwater can only become groundwater if it can get into the
ground. Grass and soil are full of tiny gaps, and roots make small channels going
down, so the rain sinks in. Concrete and stone slabs have no gaps. The water simply
slides off them. That is why a city full of cemented surfaces loses its groundwater —
the rain falls, but it never reaches the ground below.

Page 17 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

What helps recharge: keeping some open, uncovered ground; digging soak pits;
keeping ponds and human-made lakes; planting more trees. The johads of
Rajasthan — small earthen dams that catch rainwater — have been doing this job
for hundreds of years.

In-text Question — Page 10
Surface Water

Q1 Do you ever wonder how river flows?

A river flows downhill. It begins high up in the mountains, usually from melting snow, a glacier
or a spring, and then runs down across the land towards lower and lower ground, until it
reaches the sea.
Step by step, this is the journey:

1. Rain falls, or snow and ice melt, high up on a mountain.
2. The water cannot stay on the slope, so it trickles down.
3. Many small trickles join and become a stream.
4. Many streams join and become a river.
5. The river follows the low parts of the land — it curves around hills instead of climbing them.
6. Where the land is flat and low, the water spreads out and slows down. Where there is a big
hollow, it collects and makes a lake.
7. At the end of its journey it pours into the sea.

Why it goes downhill: Water has weight, and weight always pulls things down. So
water can never flow uphill by itself. This one simple rule decides the whole path of
every river in the world.

Water shapes the land too: As it rushes along, a river carries sand, mud and small
stones with it. Over hundreds of years this wears away rock and cuts out valleys, and
drops the mud in flat plains. So the land shapes the river, and the river slowly shapes
the land.

Activity 6 — Pages 10–11

Page 18 of 44

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Mustard seeds on crumpled paper
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ACTIVITY

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a s em did you observe about the mustard seeds?
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What
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m towards the lower parts of the paper. They
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The seeds rolled down from the highest point
a followed the dips and folds of the crumpled paper
did not stay where they were poured. lThey
and gathered in the low hollows. a g

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How to set it up:

1. Take a sheet of old newspaper and crumple it into a ball, then open it out.m
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s e It now has many

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folds and creases.
a gla
a s ema second sheet over it and press it down gently so that the folds become soft, gentle
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2. Lay

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3. Lift one edge so that one part is clearly the highest point.

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4. Pour a cup of mustard seeds slowly on that highest point.

s e m the paper.
5. Watch where the seeds go. Do not shake

a g la
WHAT I WATCHED WHAT I OBSERVED

co m
The direction of the seeds
m .
Always from the higher part towards the lower part — never uphill.

m as e
.co
Their path
a g l
Not straight. They ran along the grooves and bends of the folds.

s m
eWhere
gl a
a
they stopped In the low hollows, where they piled up in little heaps.

Speed Fast on the steep parts, slow where the slope was gentle.
se m
com g l a
m . a
e
s weight, so they roll to the lowest place they can
Why it happens: The seedsahave
g l
reach. The shape of theapaper decides which way they can go. Water behaves in
exactly the same way, which is why this activity is a good model of a river.
co m
m .
m as e
.co a g l
se mQ2
a
Are they moving in a straight line, or do they spread out in different directions?

ag l
.c
s e m
m a
m . co
They spread out in different directions. They do not travel in one straight line.
agl
l a se
ag stream follows the groove it happens to fall into.
The stream of seeds splits into several smaller streams. Some go left, some go right, some run
down the middle. Each little

co m
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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Highest point

Different folds send the seeds
in different directions.

Seeds gather in the hollows

One starting point, many paths — because the folds of the paper decide the way.

Why they spread: The crumpled paper is not one smooth slope. It has many small
ridges and many small valleys. A seed cannot cross a ridge, so it must follow
whichever valley it lands in. Rivers do the same. That is why rivers born close
together on the same mountain can end up in seas on opposite sides of the country.

Q3 Are they collecting in some areas? Do they gather like water gathers in lakes, rivers
and so on?

Yes. The seeds collect in the low hollows of the paper — exactly the way water collects in
ponds and lakes.

ON THE PAPER IN NATURE

A long groove with seeds running along it A river or a stream

A hollow where seeds pile up and stop A pond or a lake

A steep fold where seeds rush down fast A waterfall or a fast mountain stream

A ridge the seeds cannot cross A hill or a mountain range that divides two rivers

Seeds spilling off the edge of the paper A river reaching the sea

Page 20 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why they gather: A hollow has no lower place to go on to. Once a seed is in it, it
stops. Water does the same. If the ground under the hollow is hard and the water
cannot soak away, the water stays and a pond or a lake is formed.

The rule to remember, in the book's own words: water flows, stops or curves
according to the shape of the land formations in its path — and the flow of water
can also change the shape of the land.

Discuss — Page 11
Why rivers go to different seas

DISCUSS

Q1 On the basis of Activity 6 with mustard seeds, discuss how some rivers flow towards
the Arabian Sea while some flow towards the Bay of Bengal.

Because the land of India is not flat. It is high in some places and low in others, and every
river simply runs down the slope it is born on — just like the mustard seeds ran down the
folds of the crumpled paper.
Think of India as a very big sheet of crumpled paper.

1. Along the western edge of the peninsula there is a long high wall of hills called the Western
Ghats.
2. West of the Ghats the land drops steeply, and the Arabian Sea is close by.
3. East of the Ghats the land slopes down gently for a very long way, all the way to the Bay of
Bengal.
4. So rivers that start in the Western Ghats and face east — the Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri
— travel right across the country and empty into the Bay of Bengal.
5. The Narmada and the Tapti are different. They run westward through long narrow valleys
between hill ranges, and those valleys slope towards the west, so these two rivers reach the
Arabian Sea.
6. In the north, the Ganga, the Yamuna and the Brahmaputra come down from the Himalaya.
The plain below slopes towards the south-east, so they too go to the Bay of Bengal.

Page 21 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Western Ghats

long, gentle slope
short,
steep
Arabian Bay of

Sea Bengal

The high wall is near the west coast, so most rivers have
to run east.

A side view of peninsular India. The slope decides which sea a river reaches.

Sample answer for the class discussion: “In Activity 6 all the seeds started from the same high
point, but they did not all go the same way. Each seed followed the fold it fell into. India's land is
like that crumpled paper. The Western Ghats are the high fold near the west coast. Most of the
land slopes east from there, so most rivers run east to the Bay of Bengal. Only rivers that
happen to lie in west-sloping valleys, like the Narmada and the Tapti, reach the Arabian Sea.”

Did you know? The Luni river of Rajasthan begins in the Aravalli Range and never
reaches any sea. It ends in the marshy Rann of Kutch in Gujarat.

Activity 7 — Page 13

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Follow the Flow! — the map of India on page 12

ACTIVITY

Q1 Follow the Flow! In the map, you can see the rivers flowing in different directions.
Some flow into the Bay of Bengal and some into the Arabian Sea. Observe and fill in
the table. (Given: Godavari, Narmada, Ganga — and blank rows for more rivers.)

N

Brahmaputra
Brahmaputra
Yam
un
a
GGaannggaa

Narmada
Narmada

Tapti
Tapti
aarrii
GGooddaavv
na
Krish

Arabian Sea
Arabian Sea Bay
Bay of Bengal
Bengal
Kaveri
Kaveri

*Map not to scale

The map of India on page 12, redrawn here at true latitude and longitude. It shows the
same eight rivers as the book’s map. *Map not to scale.

Page 23 of 44

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
e m.
com
NAME OF THE MOVES TOWARDS THE BAY
l as
MOVES TOWARDS THE
g
. a
sem
RIVER OF BENGAL ARABIAN SEA

a
agl Godavari

m
Narmada

. co ag
e m
as
Ganga

a g l

co m
em.
m l as
m .co a g
l a se
a g The table printed with Activity 7 on page 13 — three rivers are named for you and three
rows are left empty for rivers you find on the map yourself.

m a s
m .co agl
l a se
a g

The map on page 12 names eight rivers: Brahmaputra, Ganga, Yamuna, Narmada, Tapti,
Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri. Trace each one with your finger until it reaches the sea, then tick
co m
the right column.
m .
m l a se
. coOF ag TOWARDS THE
e m
NAME THE MOVES TOWARDS THE BAY OF MOVES

as RIVER
agl
BENGAL ARABIAN SEA

Godavari ✓ —
se m
com g l a
m . a
e
Narmada — ✓

a s
Ganga ✓
agl —

co m
Brahmaputra ✓ —

m .
as e
com
✓ (it joins the Ganga first)
l
Yamuna —

.Tapti a g
e m
as
— ✓

agl c
.
Krishna ✓ —

s e m
m a
. co agl
Kaveri ✓ —

e m
g l as
a

com
m .
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.co


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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Bay of Bengal — 6 rivers: Ganga, Yamuna, Brahmaputra, Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri

Arabian Sea — 2 rivers: Narmada, Tapti

Why so many go east: The high Western Ghats run close to the west coast, so the
land east of them slopes gently all the way to the Bay of Bengal. Only the Narmada
and the Tapti lie in valleys that slope the other way, towards the west.

A word for it: a river that joins a bigger river instead of going straight to the sea, like
the Yamuna joining the Ganga, is called a tributary. You will meet that word again in
Chapter 2.

Life in Water — Pages 14–15
Animals on land and animals in water

Q1 It is wonderful to see the variety of plants and animals living in water! How are they
different from those living on land?

They are different because their bodies are built for water instead of for land. An animal in
water must swim, must breathe under water, and must not be pushed about by the flowing
water. So it has fins, gills and a smooth pointed body. A land animal must walk and breathe air,
so it has legs and lungs.
Look at the pond picture on pages 14–15 and compare.

How they move. The fish uses fins and a tail. The frog uses webbed hind feet. The heron
uses long thin legs to wade. The deer or the dog on land uses four legs to run.
How they breathe. Most fish take in air that is dissolved in the water, using gills. Land
animals breathe air through the nose, into the lungs.
Body shape. A fish is pointed at both ends and smooth, so it slips through water easily. A
land animal does not need that shape.
Skin cover. Fish have wet, slippery scales. Land animals have dry skin, hair or feathers.
Plants too. Water plants have soft stems that bend with the water, and broad leaves that
float. Land plants have stiff stems that stand up against the wind.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why they are built this way: Water pushes back on anything moving through it far
more than air does. A smooth, streamlined body and flat fins deal with that push.
And there is no free air under water, so an animal that lives there must be able to
take in the little air that is dissolved in the water — which is what gills do.

Q2 Complete the following table discussing with peers about the characteristics of
animals on land and animals in water. (Given: ‘Cannot breathe in water.’ / ‘Have fins
to swim.’)

ANIMALS ON LAND ANIMALS IN WATER

Cannot breathe in water. Have fins to swim.

The table printed on page 15, exactly as it stands in the book — one row filled in, five
rows blank.

Here is the completed table. The first row is the book's example.

Page 26 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

ANIMALS ON LAND ANIMALS IN WATER

Cannot breathe in water. Have fins to swim.

Breathe air through the nose, using lungs. Most breathe under water using gills.

Have legs or wings to walk, run or fly. Have fins and a strong tail to push through the water.

Body is covered with hair, feathers or dry scales. Body is smooth and slippery, often with wet scales.

Body shape is not smooth — it does not need to be. Body is pointed at both ends so it slips through water easily.

Lay eggs on land, or the young are born on land. Many lay soft eggs in the water itself.

Examples you can add: on land — cow, dog, hen, deer, elephant. In water — fish, freshwater
turtle, water snake, water scorpion.

Some live in both. The frog on the lotus leaf swims in the pond as a young tadpole,
breathing like a fish, and hops on land as an adult, breathing air. The fishing cat of
India's wetlands has partly webbed paws and dives into water to catch fish, but it
lives on land.

Activity 8 — Pages 17–18

Page 27 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Visit a pond, lake or aquarium

ACTIVITY

Q1 Visit a local water body like a pond, lake or an aquarium with your teacher or
parents, and observe life in and around the water body. 1. Based on your
observations, complete the following table. (Given rows: Fish — round mouth facing
upwards — fins; Pond heron — long and pointed — thin legs.)

NAME OF THE MOUTH OR MOVEMENT ROUGH DIAGRAM
BIRD OR BEAKS THROUGH LEGS,
ANIMAL FEET, FINS

Fish Round mouth Fins
facing
upwards

Pond heron Long and Thin legs
pointed

The table printed with Activity 8 on page 17 — the first two rows are the book’s own,
with its two rough diagrams; three rows are left blank for your own observations.

How to make the visit useful

1. Go only with a teacher or a parent. Stay well back from the edge of the water.
2. Do not touch or disturb any plant or animal. Just watch.
3. Stand still and quiet for two minutes first — the birds come back when you are quiet.
4. For each creature, note two things: what its mouth or beak looks like, and what body part
it uses to move.
5. Draw a quick outline in your notebook. It does not have to be beautiful — it has to show the
shape.

Page 28 of 44

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Sample answer — the table filled in with animals shown in the pond picture on pages 14–15
co m
and in the Information Card on page 16. The first two rows are the book's own.
em.
c o m g l as
.
mTHE a
s
NAME OF
e MOUTH OR BEAKS MOVEMENT THROUGH ROUGH DIAGRAM

gla OR
aANIMAL
BIRD LEGS, FEET, FINS

co m
. ag
Fish Round mouth facing Fins Long body, pointed at

e m
as
upwards both ends, with fins and

a g l a tail

Pond heron Long and pointed Thin legs Tall bird standing in

co m
shallow water on stick-

se m.
like legs

m l a
.co Four legs; long webbed hind g Round body, big eyes on
a
sem
Frog Wide mouth, with a long

gla
sticky tongue to catch feet for swimming and top, folded back legs

a insects jumping

m paddles a s
hard horny jaws instead olike
agl
Freshwater turtle Small blunt mouth with Four short webbed feet, used Dome-shaped shell with a

. c
em
head and four feet coming

a s
agldagger- Very short legs; it flies and
of teeth out

Kingfisher Long, straight, Small round bird on a

m
like beak for spearing dives, it does not wade reed, with a very long
fish
. co
beak

e m
m l as
m .co a g
l a se
ag
se m
com g l a
m . a
ase
agl

co m
m .
m l a se Kingfisher
.co ag
Frog Freshwater turtle
se m
g l a Rough diagrams like these are enough. Draw the shape, the mouth and the moving part.

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m .
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e m . co agl
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a

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

What to notice: each mouth matches the food, and each moving part matches the
place. The heron's long pointed beak is a pair of tongs for grabbing fish; its thin legs
let it stand in shallow water without sinking. The kingfisher's dagger beak is for a
fast dive. The turtle's webbed feet are paddles. The fish's upward-facing mouth is
handy for taking food floating at the surface.

If you cannot visit a water body: watch an aquarium in a shop or a school, or look
carefully at the pond picture on pages 14–15 of your book. You can see a frog, fish, a
turtle, a water snake, dragonflies, water striders, a kingfisher, a pond heron and
other water birds in it.

Q2 2. Draw the plants that you saw during the visit and label them with their local
name. (Table: Types — Names — Local Name; the first row gives ‘Lily’.)

Water plants sort themselves into three groups by where they keep their leaves and their
roots. Here is the table filled in. Write your own local names in the last column — they change
from place to place.

TYPES NAMES LOCAL NAME
(SAMPLE)

Plants floating (above water) Lily · Water hyacinth · Kumudini · Jalkumbhi ·
Duckweed Lemna

Plants under water Hydrilla · Vallisneria (tape Sivar / Jal-sivar
grass)

Plants whose roots are in the water bed, but Lotus · Reeds (cattail) · Kamal · Narkul / Patera ·
are seen above the water Water chestnut Singhara

How to draw each one:

1. Floating plant. Draw the water line first. Then draw round flat leaves sitting on the line, and
short hair-like roots hanging below.
2. Underwater plant. Draw a thin stem rising from the pond bed with narrow leaves all along
it, all of it below the water line.
3. Rooted plant seen above water. Draw roots in the mud at the bottom, a long stalk going up
through the water, and a leaf or flower standing above the water line.

Page 30 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why the three groups exist: Every green plant needs sunlight. A floating plant gets
it by keeping its leaves on the surface. A rooted plant like the lotus gets it by pushing
a long stalk up until the leaf is above the water. An underwater plant like hydrilla
manages with the weaker light that reaches down into the water, so its leaves are
thin and narrow.

From the Information Card, page 16: reeds are the tall grass-like edge plants; lotus
and water lily are called rooted floating — their flowers float while their roots stay in
the pond bed; water hyacinth is free-floating and spreads very fast over a pond.

Activity 9 — Page 18
A drop of water on plain paper and on waxed paper

ACTIVITY

Q1 1. Take a piece of paper and put a drop of water on it. Observe.

What you will see: the drop does not stay round. It spreads out at once into a flat wet patch,
sinks into the paper, and makes that spot dark, soft and see-through. If you lift the paper, the
wet part sags. If you rub it, it tears easily.
How to do it:

1. Take a plain, clean sheet of paper — a page from an old notebook is fine.
2. Dip one finger in water and let one drop fall on the middle of the paper.
3. Count slowly to ten and watch the drop.
4. Now touch the wet spot gently and note how the paper feels.

Why it happens: Paper is made of countless tiny fibres pressed together, with tiny
gaps between them. Water creeps into those gaps and spreads sideways and
downwards. The paper absorbs the water — it soaks it up, the way a cloth or a
sponge does.

Page 31 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q2 2. Colour the paper with a wax crayon. Now, put a drop of water on it. Do you
observe any change?

Yes — a big change. The drop stays as a round shiny bead on the surface. It does not
spread and it does not soak in. If you tilt the paper, the drop rolls off, and the paper
underneath is still dry.
How to do it:

1. Take a fresh piece of the same paper.
2. Colour a patch about the size of your palm with a wax crayon. Press hard and colour it
evenly, leaving no white gaps.
3. Put one drop of water in the middle of the coloured patch.
4. Watch it for ten seconds, then tilt the paper slowly.

WHAT I CHECK PLAIN PAPER PAPER COLOURED WITH WAX CRAYON

Shape of the drop Flattens and spreads Stays a round bead

Does it soak in? Yes, at once No

Is the paper wet after? Yes, dark and soft No, still dry

If the paper is tilted The wet patch stays The drop rolls off

Why it happens: The crayon leaves a thin layer of wax on top of the paper. Wax and
water do not mix, and wax has no gaps for water to enter. So the wax layer seals the
paper — it makes it waterproof, which means water cannot pass through it. With
nowhere to spread, the drop pulls itself into the smallest shape it can, a round bead.

Q3 Write your observation.

My observation: On plain paper the water drop spread out and soaked in, and the paper
became wet and weak. On the paper coloured with a wax crayon the drop stayed round, did not
soak in at all, and rolled off when I tilted the paper. The wax made the paper waterproof.

Plain paper → water soaks in

Waxed paper → water stays on top and rolls off

Page 32 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

What this teaches us about plants: Many leaves have a natural waxy coating, just
like the crayon layer. That coating makes the leaf waterproof and stops too much
water from getting inside the plant. This helps the plant stay healthy and keeps it
from being damaged. That is why raindrops sit like shining beads on a lotus leaf and
roll straight off — look at the picture of the leaf on page 18.

Where else do we use this idea? Raincoats, umbrellas, wax-coated paper for
wrapping food, and the polish on a car — all of them keep water out in exactly the
same way.

Activity 10 — Page 19
Who Eats Whom? — A River Food Chain Game

ACTIVITY

Q1 Who Eats Whom? — A River Food Chain Game. Distribute slips of paper to students.
Each student writes what they choose to be (for example, small fish, big fish, frog,
bird, human, crocodile, otter, etc.). Ask the students to think about what they eat,
and who eats them. Use a string to connect the students who depend on each other
for food.

How to play, step by step:

1. Every child takes a slip and writes one river living thing on it — water plant, small fish, big
fish, frog, dragonfly, pond heron, kingfisher, water snake, crocodile, otter, human. Pin the slip
on your shirt.
2. Everyone stands in a big circle.
3. Each child thinks about two questions: What do I eat? and Who eats me?
4. One child holds the end of a ball of string and passes it to someone they eat, or to someone
who eats them. That child holds the string and passes it on again.
5. Keep going until everybody is holding the string. You now have a web of string across the
circle — this is the food web of the river.
6. Now the test. Ask one child — say, all the small fish — to let go of the string. See how many
other strings go loose.

Sample food chains you can use in the game:

Page 33 of 44

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
em.
Water plants → small fish → big fish → pond heron → (nothing eats the heron here)
m l as
.co
Water plants → tadpole → frog → water snake → kingfisher
m a g
l a se
g
Tiny water insects → dragonfly → frog → crocodile
aWater plants → small fish → big fish → human

com
e m . ag
g l as
a

co m
Water plants Small fish Big fish m. heron
Pond
e
m l as
.co a g
a s em
gl
Each arrow means “is eaten by”. Energy moves along the
a arrows.

om in it depends on the one before it. a s
em
.
A simple river food chain. Every canimal agl
a s
agl
What the game teaches: No living thing in a river feeds itself alone. The plants

. com
make their own food using sunlight. The small animals eat the plants. The bigger

m a s em the whole chain.
animals eat the smaller ones. So the energy of the Sun travels along
. gl a food web, not a
co the chains cross one another, the whole thing is areally
em
Because

g l as single line.
a
se m
com g l a
m . a
ase
Q2 Discuss what would happen if one animal disappears (for example, what if all the

agl
fish are gone?).

co m

m .
e
If all the fish disappeared, the whole river would be thrown out of balance. Some animals
m l as
.co g
would go hungry, some would grow too many in number, and people would lose food and work.

e mFollow the chain both ways. a
la s
ag c
m .
m a s e
e m . co agl
g l as
a

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

WHO IS AFFECTED WHAT HAPPENS WHY

Pond heron, kingfisher, Go hungry; they move away to Fish were their main food. Nothing is left to
crocodile, otter, water another water body or their eat.
snake numbers fall

Water insects, mosquito Their numbers grow very fast The fish used to eat them. With no fish,
larvae, tadpoles nothing keeps their number down. More
mosquitoes can mean more illness.

Water plants and algae May grow over the whole The tiny creatures that graze on them get
pond and choke it eaten by fish. Remove the fish and the whole
chain wobbles.

People who fish Lose their food and their Fishing families depend on the river directly.
earning

The water itself Gets dirtier Fish eat dead bits and keep the water clean.
Without them the water becomes smelly and
unhealthy.

Sample answer for the discussion: “If all the fish were gone, the birds and animals that eat fish
would have nothing left to eat, so they would leave the river or die. At the same time the insects
that fish used to eat would increase very fast. Fishermen would lose their work. One missing link
breaks the whole chain — so protecting one animal really means protecting all of them.”

What makes fish disappear? Throwing waste and plastic into rivers, letting factory
water and drain water flow in untreated, and catching too many fish. Keeping a river
clean is the way to keep its food chain whole.

Let us reflect — Page 20

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Closing questions

LET US REFLECT

Q1 Match the following: (i) Ocean water (ii) Snow (iii) Steam (iv) Rainwater — with — (a)
Solid form of water (b) Vapour form of water (c) Not fit for drinking (d) Freshwater

COLUMN A ANSWER COLUMN B WHY

(i) Ocean (c) Not fit for drinking It is full of salt, so we cannot drink it.
water

(ii) Snow (a) Solid form of Snow is frozen water — hard, and it keeps its
water shape.

(iii) Steam (b) Vapour form of Steam is water that has turned into a gas by
water heating.

(iv) Rainwater (d) Freshwater Only water rises as vapour; the salt is left behind,
so rain is fresh.

(i) → (c) (ii) → (a) (iii) → (b) (iv) → (d)

An easy way to check: (ii) and (iii) are about the form of water — solid and vapour. (i)
and (iv) are about whether we can use the water — no and yes.

Q2 Why do you think most of the water on Earth cannot be used for drinking or
farming?

Because most of the water on Earth is salty sea water, and salty water is of no use for
drinking or for growing crops.
Think of the picture on page 4.

1. A glass of 200 ml stands for all the water on Earth.
2. The freshwater in it is only 5 ml — one teaspoon.
3. The other 195 ml is salty ocean water.
4. And even that one teaspoon is not all easy to reach. A large part of it is locked up as ice in
glaciers and ice caps, and much of the rest is groundwater deep below us.

Page 36 of 44

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

WHERE THE CAN WE DRINK OR FARM WHY NOT
WATER IS WITH IT?

Oceans and seas No Too salty. It harms the body and kills crops.

Glaciers, ice caps, Not directly It is frozen solid and lies far away in very cold
snow places.

Deep groundwater Only some of it It is far below the surface and needs a well or a
pump to reach.

Rivers, ponds, lakes, Yes This is our real supply — and it is a very small
rain share.

Why salt is the problem: Salt water pulls water out of a living body instead of giving
water to it. Drinking it makes a person thirstier. Watering a field with it dries the
plants and spoils the soil. That is why the small amount of freshwater we have must
never be wasted.

Q3 Large number of living beings live near water bodies. Why?

Because water gives them everything they need to stay alive — a drink, food, a home and
a safe place to raise their young. No living thing can survive without water, so life gathers
wherever water is.

Water to drink. Every animal must drink. A pond or a river means it does not have to travel
far.
Food. Plants grow well where there is water, and where plants grow, insects, birds and
animals come to eat. The pond itself is full of fish, frogs and insects for the bigger animals.
A home. Fish, turtles, water snakes and water scorpions live in the water. Reeds and lotus
leaves at the edge give birds a place to nest and small creatures a place to hide.
Cooler air. The air near a water body stays cooler and more pleasant, especially in summer.
For people. Villages and cities grow near rivers, because people need water for drinking, for
farming, for animals, for washing, and for travelling by boat.

Why so many kinds together: A water body offers many different living places in
one small area — open water, the muddy bed, the reedy edge, the surface, the bank.
Each place suits a different creature, so a great variety of living things can live side
by side.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Two Indian examples: Wular Lake in Jammu and Kashmir is one of the largest
freshwater lakes in Asia and also holds back floods. The Keibul Lamjao National Park
in Manipur is the only floating national park in the world; its floating islands, called
phumdis, are home to the rare Sangai deer.

Q4 What would happen if it did not rain in your region for two years?

There would be a severe water shortage — a drought. Wells and ponds would dry up, crops
would fail, and people and animals would suffer.
What would happen, in order:

1. First few months. Ponds and small streams dry up. The soil becomes hard and cracked.
2. After that. The groundwater is not being recharged, so its level falls. Handpumps start
pulling air. Wells go dry.
3. In the fields. Crops dry up and die. Farmers get no harvest and no income.
4. Food and prices. Grain and vegetables become scarce, so they become expensive.
5. Animals. Cattle have no grass and no water. Wild animals leave the area or die.
6. People. Families walk long distances to fetch water. Water has to be sent in by tankers. Some
people may leave the village to look for work elsewhere.
7. Health. The little water left is often dirty, and dirty water causes illness.

Why everything is affected: Rain is the beginning of our whole freshwater supply.
Rain fills the rivers and ponds; rain soaks in and becomes groundwater. Stop the rain
and every one of those stores slowly empties, because we keep taking water out and
nothing puts it back.

What helps in such times: storing rainwater in tanks and johads while it does rain,
keeping ponds and lakes clean and full, growing crops that need less water, and
repairing every leaking tap and pipe. Villages like Hiware Bazar in Maharashtra beat
their water shortage exactly this way, by harvesting rainwater and caring for their
watershed.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q6 Can you design a house or school that conserves water wisely? What would it
include?

Yes. A water-wise building does three things: it catches the rain that falls on it, it uses less
water every day, and it uses water twice wherever that is safe.
Sample answer — my water-wise school
1. Catch the rain

Gutters along every roof edge, leading into one downpipe.
A big covered storage tank at ground level, with a simple filter of net, gravel and sand at the
inlet.
A recharge pit beside the tank. When the tank is full, the extra water goes into this pit and
sinks down to become groundwater.
A small pond in the school ground to hold rainwater and let it seep in.

2. Use less

Push taps that close by themselves, so no tap is left running.
A monitor from each class checks every tap and pipe once a week and reports leaks the
same day.
Small-flush or dual-flush toilets.
A water-level indicator on the overhead tank so it never overflows.
Mugs beside the washbasins, and buckets instead of hosepipes for washing.

3. Use it twice

Water left in drinking bottles at the end of the day goes into the plant pots, not down the
drain.
The waste water from the RO machine is collected and used to wash floors and water the
garden.
Drip pipes water the kitchen garden slowly, drop by drop, in the early morning.

4. Keep the ground open

Grass, soil and trees instead of full cementing, so rain can soak in.
Paving blocks with gaps in the walking paths.

5. Tell everyone

Painted signs at every tap: “Close me tight”.
A chart on the notice board showing how many litres the school saved this month.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why these work: Rainwater harvesting stores water that would otherwise have run
into a drain. Recharge pits put water back where it came from. Push taps and leak
checks stop the quiet, everyday waste that adds up to the most. And reusing water
once more before it leaves means every litre does two jobs instead of one.

Draw it: Make a simple side view of the building. Show the roof, an arrow from the
roof to the pipe, the pipe to the tank, an arrow from the tank to the recharge pit, and
label the pond and the trees. Labels matter more than neat drawing.

Q7 Let us make a fish by folding a piece of paper. (Steps 1 to 6 shown in pictures.)

Take a square sheet of paper — any colour. Fold on a hard, flat table and press every crease
firmly with your thumbnail. Here are the six steps shown in the pictures on page 20.

1. Step 1 — Fold it in half. Bring the bottom edge up to meet the top edge. Press the crease
and open it again. You now have one line across the middle.
2. Step 2 — Make a flat band. Fold the top edge down to the middle line, and the bottom edge
up to the middle line. The square becomes a long band with two layers.
3. Step 3 — Open the middle and press. Put a finger inside the band and push the middle
apart, so that the two ends flare out. The paper now looks like a bow, wide at the ends and
pinched in the middle.
4. Step 4 — Fold one end into a fin. Take one end and fold its corner outwards and upwards
so that a triangle stands up. That triangle will be the fin on the fish's back.
5. Step 5 — Make the tail. At the other end, fold the two corners outwards so that they form
two sharp points. Press them flat. It is beginning to look like a fish lying on its side.
6. Step 6 — Finish the fish. Turn the whole shape so the body is upright, the pointed end is at
the back and the flat end is in front. Flatten it once more. Now draw an eye and a smiling
mouth on the front. Your paper fish is ready.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The finished paper fish
Square body, a fin on top, two points making the tail, and an eye you draw yourself.

Tips that help: use a square, not a rectangle — fold one corner of a sheet across
and cut off the extra strip. Press each crease with your nail before you make the next
fold. If a step goes wrong, open the paper out and start again from Step 1; the
creases will guide you.

Why end the chapter with a fish? The chapter began with a raindrop on a window
and ended in a pond full of life. The paper fish is a reminder of that pond — and of
the fact that every fish in it needs clean freshwater, the same water we drink.

Chapter at a glance
Most of Earth's water is salty. Look at the picture on page 4. A glass holds 200 ml of water.
A teaspoon holds 5 ml. If all the water on Earth were that full glass, all the freshwater would
be only that one teaspoon. Freshwater is water without salt. We can drink it, cook with it
and water crops with it. Sea water is salty, so we cannot use it that way.
Water has three forms. Solid — ice and snow. Liquid — the water we drink, rain, river
water. Vapour — the invisible water that floats in the air, and the steam above a boiling pan.
It is the same water each time. Only its form changes. Heat changes water into vapour.
Cooling changes vapour back into water. Very strong cooling makes ice.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The water cycle is water going round and round. The Sun heats water in oceans, rivers
and lakes. The water turns into water vapour and rises. High up the air is cold, so the
vapour cools and makes tiny drops — these drops make clouds. When the drops grow
heavy they fall as rain, snow or hail. That water runs into rivers, lakes and oceans, and the
round trip starts again. This never-ending movement is called the water cycle.
Some rainwater goes underground. Soil is not solid all through. There are tiny gaps
between soil grains. Rainwater soaks into these gaps and sinks down through layers of soil
and rock. Water stored deep below the ground is called groundwater. We reach it with
wells, borewells, tube wells and handpumps.
Open ground recharges groundwater; hard surfaces do not. Rain that falls on grass, soil,
a field or a forest soaks in. Rain that falls on a cement road, a paved courtyard or a roof runs
away into drains. That is why cities with lots of concrete lose their groundwater. Soak pits,
ponds, human-made lakes and more trees help rainwater get back underground. In
Rajasthan, small earthen dams called johads have done this job for hundreds of years.
Rivers, ponds and lakes are surface water. A river usually begins high up in the
mountains and flows down across the land. Water always moves from higher ground to
lower ground. It bends, stops and spreads according to the shape of the land in its path.
Over a long time the flowing water also changes the shape of the land itself.
India's rivers flow to two seas. The map on page 12 shows the Brahmaputra, Ganga,
Yamuna, Narmada, Tapti, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri. Most of them — Ganga, Yamuna,
Brahmaputra, Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri — flow east into the Bay of Bengal. The Narmada
and the Tapti flow west into the Arabian Sea. The Luni river of Rajasthan is special: it never
reaches a sea at all. It ends in the marshy Rann of Kutch in Gujarat.
Freshwater is full of life. A pond has plants that float on top (water hyacinth, lily), plants
that stay under the water, and plants whose roots are in the pond bed while their leaves and
flowers stand above the water (lotus, reeds). It has fish with fins, frogs, turtles, water
snakes, dragonflies, water scorpions, and birds like the pond heron and the kingfisher that
come to catch fish. Each one has a special body part that suits life in or near water.
Water is limited and shared. Wular Lake in Jammu and Kashmir is one of Asia's largest
freshwater lakes and it holds back floodwater. Keibul Lamjao in Manipur is the world's only
floating national park. Hiware Bazar in Maharashtra became a water-positive village by
harvesting rain and caring for its watershed. All of this works only if we use water carefully
and let rain soak back into the ground.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Water — The Essence of Life AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

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