NCERT Solutions for Class 5th The World Around Us Chapter 1 Groundwater — Activity 4
Book page 9 Updated on2026-09-19
Q1.
Take a transparent glass. Fill half of it with soil. Slowly pour water into the soil using a spoon. Observe what happens.
Answer
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:
Take a clear glass or a cut plastic bottle so that you can see the sides.
Fill it half with dry garden soil. Do not press the soil down.
Take a spoonful of water and pour it slowly on the middle of the soil.
Watch the surface, and also watch the soil through the side of the glass.
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 spoons
Clear water begins to gather at the bottom of the glass, below the wet soil.
If you keep pouring
The soil is full. Water now stands on the surface and does not sink in — this is like waterlogging after heavy rain.
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.