Energy, Environment, and Health

Classroom Activities

Activity 1 – Water Audit

Students conduct a home water audit and compare and contrast results with and without the implementation of water conservation practices.

Objectives: Students will:

- provide a rationale for implementing home water conservation measures.

- describe the benefits of at least five home water conservation practices.

- recommend water conservation strategies to be implemented within their own homes.

Materials

Water Audit Data Sheet – 2 per student

Activity

1. Organize students into cooperative learning groups.

2. Have each group list all the ways they use water in a 24 hour period inside and outside their homes. Record their ideas on the board.

4. Hand out the Water Audit Data Sheet I. Ask students to review the sheet.

5. Ask them to record on the sheet in Column A by each water use the number of times they believe they conduct that activity in a 24 hour period.

6. Instruct them to record the number of times they and their family actually conduct each water use activity over the next 24 hours in Column B of Water Audit Data Sheet I.

7. Have students compare the number of gallons they predicted with their actual use.

Did they use more water than they guessed? Less? Were students surprised by the amount of water they used?

8. Ask students if they know of any ways to reduce the number of gallons of water they use. Do their parents frequently ask them to turn off the shower? Why? Is water free, just because it flows freely from the faucet?

9. Do students believe that using water resources wisely makes sense?

10. Ask students to suggest some water conservation practices. Some ideas have been incorporated in Data Sheet II.

11. Hand out Water Audit Data Sheet II. Ask students to again record the amount of water they and their family use in a 24 hour period, but this time they will implement as many water conservation practices as they can.

12. Ask students to calculate the total amount of water they used in a 24-hour period when they were practicing water conservation measures. Direct students to compare the total number of gallons on Data Sheet I to the total on Data Sheet II.

Wrap Up

Have students respond to the following questions related to water conservation practices:

How did their water consumption change after implementing water conservation measures? How many gallons of water did they save?

Were they more careful about their use of water after they realized how much they used?

Which conservation measures were the easiest to institute? Which practices were the most difficult? Why?

If you were only allowed 30 gallons of water per day, to what water uses would you give the highest priority?

Select three of the water conservation practices that you found fairly easy to use. If you were to apply these three practices routinely, how many gallons of water would you save each month? If every member of your family consistently employed these practices, how many gallons would be saved per month within your own household?

Is it a good idea for a school, business, or hospital to conduct a water audit? Why would a water audit be beneficial for these institutions?

Have students write a set of at least five recommendations or suggestions for their family based on their home water audit. These suggestions should include short and long term actions. For example, for long term actions, students may suggest that low flow showerheads be installed or water saving appliances purchased when the current ones no longer function. They could calculate the savings based upon gallons per minute flow restrictors compared with open lines. They could measure gpm from their faucets by opening the tap fully and measuring the time it takes to fill a quart bottle…Have students share their recommendations with the class.

Activity 2 - Non-point Source Pollution

Background: This activity is designed to demonstrate to students what an average storm drain collects during a rainfall event and how the water from storm drains can impact the water quality and aquatic environments of local streams, rivers, and bays.

Materials:

"Waterway" "Pollutants"

Aquarium Green Food Coloring (pesticides/fertilizer)

Rectangular Box Vegetable Oil (motor oil)

Water Soil/Sand/Pebbles (erosion)

Watering Can Grass Clippings (or Shredded Paper) and Twigs

Spray Bottle Cafeteria Waste and Trash

Preparation: Fill the aquarium half-way with water and place it on an accessible area where it can be easily viewed by the students. Cut a hole in the bottom of the box and place the box on top of the aquarium. The box represents the storm drain and the aquarium represents the waterway that the storm water mixes into after entering the storm drain. Leave the sides of the aquarium uncovered so that the students can view its contents.

Procedure:

1. Introduce this activity with a discussion of storm drains and storm drain systems and their purposes. Discuss where the water and objects that float down into a storm drain go. Have students list all of the things that they can think of that might enter a storm drain during a rain storm.

2. Assign a group of students to each pollutant. Discuss each pollutant, including its use or origin and how it could enter the storm drain.

3. Have each group of students place their pollutant into the storm drain. Use the watering can to create rain to wash the pollutant into the waterway. While washing each pollutant into the waterway, review the pollutant and its use or origin. Discuss the following questions: How does the pollutant damage the environment? Do the people who are responsible for the pollutant want to damage the environment?

Why did they do what they did? How can this type of pollution be stopped?

4. After adding all of the pollutants, examine the contents of the waterway. Discuss how the waterway has changed and how viewing this change makes the students feel.

Follow-up Questions:

1. What types of the pollution are natural?

2. What types of pollution are added by people living in the local communities?

3. How can we remove the pollution from the water?

4. What could be done to stop pollutants from entering storm drains?

Extensions: Have the groups of students responsible for the pollution think of ways to remove the pollution from the aquarium. Try some of the removal methods. Which pollutants were easy to remove? Which were difficult to remove?

Activity 3 – Constructing a Watershed Model

Background

Simple materials are turned into models of wetlands and watersheds in this activity. Students follow the path of the water (and urban runoff) to a lake and develop an initial understanding of what watersheds are. Then some students add sponges to the borders of their lake to simulate wetlands and compare watersheds with wetlands to those without. Students extrapolate the role of watersheds as reservoirs in times of drought, as sponges in times of flood, and as filters for pollution. Finally, students compare watersheds with wetlands to those without after a "toxic chemical spill" (Koolaid drink mix) to see the effects of pollution throughout the watershed as well as to discover the role of wetlands in reducing the harm of severe pollutants to a lake.

Materials

Each team of 3 students needs:

1 plastic tray/container about 8" x 10"

1 kitchen sponge cut into 4 rectangular pieces (the yellow sponges with the green scrubbing material work well for students to observe a color change in the yellow "soil" portion of the sponge while the green material simulates plants living in the wetlands)

1 water spray bottle

a set of water-based markers – various colors

The teacher needs:

a stack of white cardstock paper (each team will use 3 sheets)

1 packet of colored drink mix like Koolaid or Hawaiian Punch

map or satellite image of the school and neighboring areas showing the watershed

Everyone needs:

a copy of the Watershed and Wetlands Questions

a sink to clean sponges and dump dirty water

a trash can

Procedure

Group students into teams of 3 that later pair up into groups of 6

Part 1 – Building a watershed

1) Tell students to imagine that it is raining. Ask the students: "Where does raindrop go after it hits the school building? Where does it go from there? Where does it end up?" They should be able to trace it to a gutter. You may need to prompt them towards naming the rest of the route.

2) Discuss the idea of a watershed. It includes all the land that water flows over and through to get to a larger body of water. Help students imagine what this means in terms of a raindrop that falls in different places in your watershed. Use a map if you want. It is not important that all the kids completely understand the idea right now. The activity that follows should help consolidate the idea for students to experience.

3) Tell the students that they will be building models of watersheds and observing what happens to their models when it "rains". Briefly demonstrate what they will be doing to make their watershed so they can see a nearly finished product before setting the kids loose.

4) Split the class into groups of 3.

5) Students should crumple a sheet of cardstock into a ball then slowly flatten it out again. You should have a piece of paper with many valleys and ridges. Pick one end to be the top; this end will have tall mountains. The other end will be near a lake.

6) First, using markers, add water to your watershed. Have students think about where to put these rivers. Will they be at the tops of ridges or in the valleys? Where might lakes form?

7) Next add natural areas – animals, trees, plants, rocks, sandy banks. Add urban and agricultural areas – houses, cars, schools, farms, gardens, factories, roads, cars. Have students think about where to put various things. Where would you find forests? Where would you find meadows? Where would animals want to live? Where might it be very rocky? Where would people want to build houses? How would they get to their houses? Where would they work and go to school? Where would their food come from? Would you want to build a farm at the top of a mountain? Allow 5-10 minutes for students to finish their watersheds. They should be very colorful.

8) Carefully fit the watershed into the plastic tray so that the mountainside is propped up on the narrow end of the tray (the mountain end) and the land slopes gradually towards the far end of the tray (the lake end), leaving a 2-3 inch gap between the end of the paper and the lake end. Wedge the paper snugly in place leaving as little gap as possible between the sides and the paper.

9) Take one of the markers and prop the mountain end of the tray up a little. This is to make sure that a lake forms on the lake end and does not run back under the land.

10) The 3 students should take turns spraying the paper using the fine mist setting. Spray for 3-5 minutes until there is a decent sized puddle in the lake end.

11) Give students the Watershed and Wetlands Questions handout and give students a few minutes to answer the first set of questions. The questions do not have to be used during class. You could use the questions to being a class discussion or use them as a homework assessment.

12) When students have finished writing their answers, begin a discussion of how this model represents a watershed and how different things affect the watershed. If you still have the diagram of your watershed on the board, you could add these ideas to your diagram. Now is the time to really consolidate the idea of a watershed. Some questions could include:

What path did the rain take through your watershed?

What effect do natural areas have on the watershed? Urban areas? Agricultural areas?

What is "runoff"? Is runoff different in natural versus urban versus agricultural areas? It is important to distinguish erosion from urban runoff.

What affect does runoff have on the lake?

What is a watershed? How is this model similar to a real watershed? How is it different?

Part 2 – Adding Wetlands

13) Tell students that they will now build another watershed. This time, we will compare watersheds with wetlands to those without. Open a discussion of what students think wetlands are. Have they ever seen one? What does it look like? What kinds of plants and animals live there? If they don't know the term wetland, they will likely have heard of a marsh and can bring up a good mental picture.

14) Pair teams up with one another. One team will have a wetland represented by sponges at the border between the land and the lake; the other will do the activity exactly as before (in the third rendition, they will switch roles so that everyone has a wetland once).

15) Clean up the materials and allow groups to create a new watershed with a new sheet of cardstock paper. It should not take as much time this time nor is it necessary for the watersheds to be as elaborate.

16) Set up the trays as before, however, one team should add a tightly packed row of damp sponges to the border between the land and the lake. THE SPONGES MUST BE DAMP. They should not be sopping wet, nor should they be wrung out as much as possible. They should be somewhere in between so that some water could still be wrung out if you tried.

17) Place the watershed with wetlands directly beside the watershed without wetlands and prop up the mountain end with a marker.

18) Allow it to rain an equal amount on each watershed. The students should make an effort to squirt the 2 watersheds an equal number of times. As it rains, encourage them to notice any differences between the 2 watersheds. Stop when a small lake had built up – about 3 minutes.

19) Give students a few minutes to answer the second set of questions. When students have finished writing their answers, begin a discussion of what the role of watersheds might be. Some questions you may want to consider include:

Were there any differences in how quickly each lake filled? What does that mean about what wetlands do in times of heavy rain? Introduce the idea of wetlands as sponges during wet times and reservoirs during dry times to even out the flow of water.

What happened to the color of the bottoms of the sponges? What does this represent?

Introduce the idea of wetlands as filters for pollution.

Part 3 – Toxic Waste

20) Have students hypothesize what might happen to a watershed if a truck carrying pesticides crashed along a highway near a creek. What parts of the watershed might be affected?

21) Students will now have a chance to test their ideas on their models. As before, there will be one team with a wetland and one without, however they should switch roles. A spoonful of pesticide will be added to each watershed before it rains.

22) Clean up the materials and allow groups to create a new watershed with a new sheet of cardstock paper. Set up the trays as before, placing the watershed with wetlands directly beside the watershed without wetlands and prop up the mountain end with a marker.

23) At this point, the teacher should go around and add a teaspoonful of drink mix to the middle of each watershed.

24) Allow it to rain an equal amount on each watershed. Notice any differences between the 2 watersheds. Stop when a small lake had built up – about 3 minutes.

25) Give students a few minutes to answer the final set of questions. When students have finished writing their answers, begin a discussion about the differences between non-point source pollution (runoff) and a pesticide spill. This activity should help illustrate how a single event in one location can affect a very large area and affects all downstream water users including wildlife in the marsh and the lake. Students will observe that while a wetland can soak up some pollution, some will also leak through into the lake. Can it be cleaned up once it gets into the water? Emphasize that although a waste spill is far more dramatic, urban non-point source pollution accounts for the vast majority of the pollution in most watersheds.

26) Given what we've discovered about watersheds and wetlands, what can we do to help them thrive? Have students brainstorm ideas.