Clean Water Availability
Jennifer Tapolcai, Bothwell Middle School, Marquette, Michigan
Brief Project Description
Students will observe several water bodies near our school and generate questions about water quality and water scarcity.
Students will learn about their local water quality, but also culminate all of this in a project on environmental justice concerning freshwater water availability worldwide. The language arts teacher will support the learning by reading lLinda Sue Park's novel A Long Walk to Water about a young man and young woman's journey to find safe, clean water for their tribes in South Sudan. Students will read the novel in their Language Arts classroom.
Who: You, the students, will read the novel A Long Walk to Water in Mrs. Tapolcai and Mr. Thoms' classrooms (Science and Language Arts).
What: The students will read the novel and accompanied informational texts on clean water, wells, and the conflict in Sudan from Newsela and other sources. The focus will be on the guided inquiry questions below.
Where: In our classrooms at Bothwell, the pond in the woods south of BMS, Whetstone Brook, Orianna Creek, ditches near BMS, Lake Superior, and water samples taken from local inland ponds and lakes within Marquette County.
When: Beginning Sept 18 with the novel, ending sometime around the end of the first quarter/mid-November.
Why: Students will complete this project to give them a better understanding of the quality of our local water resources, to describe and define the bacteria present in water and the dangers (or lack thereof) that are present in the water, learn about how wells are created and how they work, and studying who does and does not have access to water and how this global problem can be solved.
How: Students in our classrooms will use gathered experimental data, their book, informational texts, science notebooks, and online resources to demonstrate their learning and create a project focused and centered on the guided inquiry questions.
Inquiry Questions for Students
- Where is the fresh water on earth? How much is available for human use?
- What bacteria and/or microorganisms are present in drinking water that can cause illness?
- Are there things we cannot see?
- What similarities/differences do we see in the data from different water sites around Bothwell?
- What factors would account for these similarities and differences?
- What data can we collect from nearby water bodies? What does that data tell us?
- How can we analyze that data?
- What conclusions or predictions could we make?
- How can freshwater be processed so that it is safe for human consumption?
- (in preparation of what students, especially those from downstate, might inquire) What happened in Flint, and how can we avoid that happening again?
- Who does not have access to clean drinking water?
- How are wells created and how do they work?
- What is the cost of this project?
- In what ways can we support those without access?
NGSS Standards Addressed
CCSS Standards Addressed
- Include standards from CCSS (via Appendix M)
ISTE Standards Addressed
1 Empowered Learner
Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.
2 Digital Citizen
Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.
3 Knowledge Constructor
Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.
3a
Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for their intellectual or creative pursuits.
3b
Students evaluate the accuracy, perspective, credibility and relevance of information, media, data or other resources.
3c
Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.
3d
Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.
Project Outline
1. A day of MEECS ¨Where is all the water in the world?¨
Read aloud ¨All the Water¨ by George Ella Lyon. Class discussion about book. Quick write in notebook
2. Look at Water Quality Usage website. https://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/maps/visualization-water-use-united-states Use 7 bulleted Write to Learn Strategies.
2. QFT Day!
Introduce students to wetland by school. Have them make observations in their notebooks.
Follow protocol of QFT with whiteboards and small groups. Come up with some testable questions with guidance of teacher.
3. Macroinvertibrates day 1. Students will collect samples of pond water and collect macroinvertibrates. Specimen will be brought into the classroom for observation and documentation.
4. Introduction to the idea of macroinvertibrates as indicators of pollution. Discussion about how to compile data and use it to create concensus about water quality. Board meeting and concensus building. Reflection on the day will be a write on how they would collect data more effectively/accurately, etc.
5. Art day- Wet on Wet Watercolor Critters. Students would start by making their paint spots. While they are drying we would continue with loose ends from the previous day.
6. Art day continued. Finish macroinvertibrates from the previous day and write an artist´s statement.
7.
Provide a list of opportunities for data collection
- Observational - Not sure exactly what to expect here, but will talk to the Water Treatment Facility to see what they can offer us
- Water treatment facility
- Naturalistic - Compare various data from different sites via Vernier probes, underwater ROV, etc.
- Pond by school
- Ditch behind school
- Orianna and Whetstone Creeks
- Inland lakes
- Lake Superior
- Experimental-
- Filtering water experiments with different methods.
Provide a list of key formative and summative assessments
- At the water treatment facility, students can perform hands-on tasks related to water filtration, etc. (these are in the works with the MQT water treatment facilities)
- Storyboard of the water treatment process (or they may choose some form of artistic expression such as a poem, a comic, etc)
- Group research on what can be found in water (good versus bad bacteria/microorganisms)
- Students will create a flip-grid or WeVideo demonstrating their learning from their research
- Macro-invertebrate study (a la what we did Wednesday morning) with inquiry form and group presentation
- Students will make an info-graph on the data they collected
- Board meeting and reflection in regards to their data collection from water in local water sources & water quality tests
- Canva posters helping educate their school-mates on the lack of clean water access to peoples across the world, that include solutions for this issue and how we can locally conserve water resources
- Environmental Justice Research Paper in regards to water scarcity worldwide & solutions to this problem
- Could be done in a variety of ways, such as a poster, tri-fold, Prezi, PowerPoint, etc.
- Thinking maps, such as a double-bubble map, comparing their local water access and treatment to that of South Sudan, or other localities if they would prefer to research those
Materials Needed
- Water Cycle overview
- All the Water in the World, book by George Ella Lyon
- Where is the all the Water? MEECS
- Chromebooks
- Water quality API test
- A Long Walk to Water book
- Chart paper
- White-boards
Additional Resources
https://michigancleanwater.org/ Connect with songwriters (Seth Bernard, etc) to visit the classroom
https://superiorwatersheds.org/ Have guest presenters talk about water quality monitoring done in the area, present the idea of watershed