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Infiltration of Water through Soil

Materials Required:

A used plastic bottle ,Soil ,Water, filter paper or a piece of cotton cloth ,knife 

The Procedure

Real lab procedure:

  • Take a clean used plastic bottle. 
  • Cut the bottle with a knife about 5 cm below the neck to divide it into two parts.  
  • Invert the upper part of the bottle and keep it over the lower part. The upper part will be used as a funnel and the lower part as a container. 
  • Fix a filter paper or cloth in the improvised funnel. 
  • Now add some soil over the filter paper till it fills two third part of the funnel. Your apparatus to show infiltration is ready
  • Pour some water on the soil and wait for some time.  
  • Check if some water drops are trickling down. If not, pour some more water on the soil surface till water starts trickling down. 
  • You can also try to do the experiment using different type of soil and observe the change.  

Simulation Procedure: 

  • Drag and drop the knife towards the first bottle to cut it about 5 cm below the neck.
  • Drag and drop the upper part of first bottle (to be used as a funnel) into the lower part of the same bottle (container).  
  • Drag and drop the filter paper into top of first bottle (funnel). 
  • Repeat the above steps for other two bottles. 
  • Click on the ‘Next’ button. 
  • Click on the sample icon to select the soil. 
  • Drag and drop the sand into the first bottle with filter paper. 
  • Drag and drop the beaker with water into the bottle containing sand. 
  • Observe the cross-section of the soil and the water trickling down to the container.  
  • Repeat the steps for silt and clay. 
  • Notice the difference in the size of soil particle. 
  • Click on the inference button. 
  • To redo the experiment click the 'Reset' button. 
  • Note:Click on the ‘HELP’ button to see the instructions. 

Observations:

The water that was poured over the soil has percolated through the soil and a portion of it gets collected in the container. 

Conclusions: 

Surface water, whether from water bodies, rain, or that from human activity percolates through soil and is stored as ground water. This process of seeping of water into the ground is called infiltration.