Water — The Essence of Life – Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1 Notes & NCERT PDF

Class 5The World Around UsChapter 1NCERT book: Our Wondrous World - EVS Class 5

Notes and a simple summary of Chapter 1 of the NCERT Class 5 The World Around Us book, with the official chapter PDF, flashcards, an MCQ quiz and an AI tutor for your doubts.

🎧 Listen to the content

Chapter 1: Water — The Essence of Life

Introduction

It is raining. Afreen rushes to the window where her friend Jyoti is watching raindrops slide down the glass. Afreen asks, "Where do you think all this water comes from, and where does it go?" This chapter follows the journey of water: where it is found, the forms it takes, how it moves in the water cycle, and the plants and animals that live in it. It is the first chapter of Unit 1: Life Around Us.

What We Learn

How much water is fresh?

Most of the Earth's surface is covered with water, but most of it is salty (ocean water). Only a small amount is freshwater, and all living beings (people, animals, birds and plants) depend on it for drinking, farming and daily work.

Imagine if all the water on Earth were in a glass (200 ml). Then the freshwater would be only as much as a teaspoon (5 ml)!

The salt pans of Gujarat dry seawater to collect salt, one of the largest salt-producing areas in India.

Johads in Rajasthan are small traditional earthen dams that collect rainwater and recharge groundwater.

Wular Lake (Jammu and Kashmir) is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Asia and helps control floods.

Water has different forms

Water can be a liquid (rain), a solid (ice, snow, hail) and a vapour (steam). Ice melts into water, and heated water turns into steam, which can turn back into water droplets.

The water cycle

The Sun's heat turns water from oceans, rivers and lakes into water vapour. The vapour cools and forms clouds, which bring the water back down as rain, snow and hail. The water flows back into rivers, lakes and oceans.

This constant circular movement of water in nature is called the water cycle.

Groundwater

When it rains, the soil soaks up some water. It sinks through layers of soil and rock and is stored deep underground as groundwater. We take it out using wells, borewells, tube wells and handpumps.

In cities with lots of cement and concrete, rainwater cannot soak in, so groundwater is not recharged.

Soak pits, ponds, lakes, open ground and trees help rainwater go back underground.

Hiware Bazar (Maharashtra) became a water-positive village through rainwater harvesting and watershed management.

Surface water and rivers

Rivers, ponds and lakes are surface water. A river usually starts in the mountains and flows downhill. Water flows, stops or curves according to the shape of the land, and flowing water can also change the shape of the land.

On the map of India, some rivers flow into the Bay of Bengal and some into the Arabian Sea.

The Luni river (starting in the Aravalli Range, Rajasthan) is the only major Indian river that does not reach a sea. It ends in the marshy Rann of Kutch.

Life in water

Afreen and Jyoti see tiny fish and a frog on a lotus leaf in the pond. Water plants and animals have special features:

Fish have fins to swim. The pond heron has long legs and stands still to catch fish.

The water scorpion breathes through a tail tube. The dragonfly lays eggs near water and eats mosquitoes.

Plants: reeds (grow at the pond edge), lotus and water lily (roots in the pond bed, flowers float), water hyacinth (floats freely and spreads fast).

Leaves have a waxy coating that makes them waterproof.

The Fishing Cat has partly webbed paws. Keibul Lamjao (Manipur) is the world's only floating national park, with floating islands called phumdis and the Sangai deer.

Activities in the Chapter

Ice in a steel glass: Droplets form on the outside because water vapour in the air cools and turns to liquid. The ice melts.

Water cycle in a bag: Coloured water in a sealed bag kept in the sun heats up, droplets form inside, and they slide back down, just like rain.

Water in a glass of soil: The water soaks into the soil, showing how groundwater forms.

Mustard seeds on crumpled newspaper: The seeds roll down the slopes, spread out and collect in low areas, like rivers and lakes.

Wax crayon paper: A water drop stays as a bead on waxed paper, like on a waxy leaf.

River food chain game: Students connect who eats whom with string (small fish, big fish, frog, bird, otter, crocodile, human) and discuss what happens if one animal disappears.

Key Words

Freshwater (मीठा पानी), Saltwater (खारा पानी)

Water vapour (जलवाष्प), Water cycle (जल चक्र)

Groundwater (भूजल), Recharge (पुनर्भरण)

Surface water (सतही जल), Glacier (हिमनद)

Habitat (आवास), Fins (पंख / मीन-पंख)

Waxy coating (मोमी परत), Salt pan (नमक क्यारी)

Connect to Your Life

Where does the water in your home come from? Is it a tap, a tank, a well or a handpump? Look around your school: is there open ground where rain can soak in, or is it all cemented?

Common Mix-ups

Ocean water is not fit for drinking, even though there is so much of it.

Droplets outside a cold glass do not leak through the glass. They come from water vapour in the air.

Clouds are made of tiny water droplets, not smoke.

Not every river ends in a sea (the Luni river).

Let Us Reflect (Hints)

Match: ocean water → not fit for drinking; snow → solid; steam → vapour; rainwater → freshwater.

Most water cannot be used because it is salty.

In a forest, rain soaks into the soil. In a city, it runs off concrete.

A water-wise house or school might have rainwater harvesting, soak pits and no leaking taps.

💡 Key Learning Points

✓Most water on Earth is salty; freshwater is only about a teaspoon compared with a whole glass
✓Water exists as liquid, solid (ice, snow, hail) and vapour, and can change from one form to another
✓The Sun's heat drives the water cycle: evaporation, cloud formation, and rain, snow or hail
✓Rainwater soaks into soil to become groundwater, and cemented surfaces stop this recharge
✓Rivers flow downhill following the shape of the land, and water plants and animals have special features to live in water

👨‍🏫 Teaching Tips

→Show the 200 ml glass and a 5 ml teaspoon side by side to make the freshwater comparison unforgettable
→Do the sealed-bag water cycle on a sunny window and let students record 'I Observe / I Wonder' notes every hour
→Build the mustard-seed landscape on crumpled newspaper, then trace rivers to the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea on an India map
→Take a supervised walk to a pond or aquarium and fill the observation table (mouth or beak, movement, body covering)
→Play the 'Who Eats Whom?' string game and remove the 'fish' to show how the whole river chain is affected
→Walk around school to spot cemented versus open ground and discuss where rainwater can soak in
→Ask students to collect river stories or festivals from grandparents, as the teacher's note suggests

📋 Assessment Questions

Can the student explain why most of Earth's water cannot be used for drinking or farming?
Can the student describe the water cycle in order: heat, vapour, clouds, rain back to rivers and oceans?
Can the student explain how groundwater forms and why cities make recharge harder?
Can the student name two water plants or animals and the special feature that helps each one live in water?
Can the student use a map to say whether a river flows into the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian Sea?

Ask the AI tutor about Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 1

Get question answers, important questions, a quick MCQ quiz or a simple explanation of “Water — The Essence of Life”. Free — sign in with Google.

How the AI tutor works →

👩‍🏫 Class 5 The World Around Us classes near you — online or at home

Prefer a real teacher? TalentJR teachers take live online classes anywhere in India and visit homes in selected cities. Tell us what you need and our team will call you with timings and fees.

Live online classesSmall groups or 1:1 with a teacher, from home, any city.
Teacher at homeA TalentJR teacher visits your home (selected cities).
At a centreClasses at a TalentJR partner centre near you, where available.

Keep learning

Next: Chapter 2 →Journey of a River