What are watersheds?

A watershed is like a big funnel that collects all the rainwater and sends it to one special place.

Imagine you're playing in a big puddle on a rainy day. Now picture your neighborhood as a giant, squishy sponge. When it rains, the water soaks into the ground and flows down hills, through streets, and into rivers or lakes, just like how you might splash from one puddle to another. A watershed is all the land that sends its rainwater to the same river, lake, or ocean.

Think of a watershed as a giant bowl. Rain falls on the ground, and depending on where it lands, it rolls down hills and valleys until it finds its way into the bottom of the bowl, which could be a pond, a stream, or even the sea!

Sometimes, people build dams or pipes to control how water moves in a watershed, just like you might use a bucket to carry water from one place to another.

If you live near a river, chances are you're inside a watershed, and every time it rains, you're helping send water on its journey!