cycling on the water cycle

The water cycle keeps coming up in teacher discussions. I'm assuming it's an important part of grade 4-5 curriculum in the state. Also, it seems to be where teachers have a concrete understanding of something "not being created or destroyed."

Today, I listened to two teachers, Sara and Charlene, working to create energy theater scenarios for their classrooms. Sara wanted to apply energy theater to earth science:

"What if we were to do some sort of energy theater with land and water? We could do faster water, which does erosion, and slower water, which does deposition. But how do you demonstrate a bigger object [like a river, vs. a chair or a plate of spaghetti]? "

Sara and Matt discussed kinetic energy, how there is more in the faster moving water, how the kinetic energy transfers from the water to the soil. "But how does it transfer in deposition?" Sara struggled with both how to understand the energy concepts and with how to create an exercise for her students. At this point, she dropped her questions and focused on on teaching the process of energy theater to kids.

While the water cycle seems a really huge thing to tackle with energy theater, I wonder if there's some way to capture the connection teachers have with the concept. I also find myself wondering how Sara might have worked through her question about how energy transfers in deposition if she had been doing this as energy theater in a group, rather than discussing it sitting at a table.