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Ari Raider's Training Materials · Whitewater Rush · Training Center 5 of 6
Runoff & Soak-In
The Panning Pools are brown with everything the land has shed into them. Whatever the land sheds, the river receives — so it matters enormously where the rain goes.
What you're training for
At the Panning Pools, nothing will settle. The churning stops for whoever can sort what runs off from what soaks in. Train here first; prove it in the simulation.
The science
- Rain has two choices: soak into the ground (infiltration) or run off the surface into the river.
- Soft, plant-covered ground soaks it up — meadows, forest floors, sandy soil.
- Hard, bare or steep ground sheds it — pavement, bare rock, packed slopes — straight into the river, carrying whatever it picks up.
- This is why cities flood faster than forests: pave a watershed and every storm arrives in the river at once.
Teach it today — a sponge and a plate
The sponge test. Tilt a sponge and a plate over two trays and pour the same cup of "rain" on each. Measure what each tray catches. The sponge is the meadow, the plate is the parking lot — and the trays are the river. Then ask: which one is your schoolyard?
Trained and ready? Prove it at Stop 5 — the Panning Pools. Free, no logins, progress saved on the device.
Enter the Realm at Stop 5Resources in this training center
Worksheets, reading passages, flashcards and printables for this lesson are being added — new resources land here first. Get one email a month when they do, or browse the whole free library.
The hands-on half: the Whitewater Rush Adventure Kit puts six real specimens — pyrite, the fool's gold of the Panning Pools, included — plus six Digs, six Gemlings and the Realm map in your students' hands. $19.99, or $15 a student for classrooms.
More Whitewater Rush training
Water Cycle · States of Water · Watersheds · Parts of a River · Runoff & Soak-In · Clean Water · Enter the Adventure →