Goals:
1. Students will understand how they affect the water cycle.
2. Students will realize their connection to marine pollution.
3. Students will understand the importance of the water cycle and how pollution is dispersed throughout the water cycle.
4. Students will create a map demonstrating an understanding of the water cycle.
5. Students will create a map showing how their local community affects the pollution of the oceans.
Resources:
1. MSI education page/ http://www.msichicago.org Water Cycle student activity.
2. http://www.cais. com/gewex/gewex.html. Global energy and water cycle experiment, research group that studies energy fluxes on the land, in the oceans, and in the atmosphere.
3. Detailed map of the United States. See Internet access at, http://www.nima.mil/.
4. Local USGS Local and regional office site. Internet address http://h20.usgs.gov/public/wrd602.html. Contains information of water data base at local sites around the country.
5. Textbook, if applicable.
6. Materials
a. Two large pieces of paper for each student.
b. Felt pens
c. Markers
d. Pencils
e. Glue
f. Pictures of water pollution collected from newspapers/magazines
Time:
Lesson will take between 6 to 8 hours of classroom time. If time is a problem, lesson can be divided up into sections.
Procedure:
Background Information-
Water moves from the oceans, to the air, to the land, and then back again. This is an endless cycle. This is nature's way of recycling and cleaning the earth's water supply. However, nature cannot effectively clean the earth's water today as effectively as it once did. Industrialization and growing populations have created a large burden on the earth's water supply. Society has created large sources of pollution that continually enter the earth's water cycle making it impossible for mother nature to clean the water supply. Dilution in the ocean does not make chemicals go away. Dilution allows for these toxic chemicals to become dispersed throughout our entire water system. Part of this activity will require the use of the mole concept to calculate a simulated hypothetical dilution factor over the entire volume of water in our lakes, rivers, and oceans. The students are going to complete an experiment in which water molecules in a glass of water are marked or labeled. The glass of water is then returned to the ocean, or lake or river. After water is completely mixed, a second glass of water will be taken from the same body of water.
Pollution Probe. 1991. The Canadian Green Consumer Guide. McClelland and Stewart. Toronto.
Step 1- Students will draw a map of the water cycle. The map will trace the movement of water through the water cycle. Note: Students will already have an understanding of how water moves through the cycle from lesson #2: The Water Cycle.
Step 2- Students will create a second map showing how their community contributes to the pollution of our oceans.
Step 3- On a large piece of paper, draw the United States.
Step 4- Students will then draw the location of their community or another community selected by students or assigned by the teacher.
Step 5- Students will draw the nearest body of fresh water.
Step 6- Students will draw the nearest body of salt water.
Step 7- Students will draw the nearest source of fresh drinking water.
Step 8- Students will draw the locations and routes of their household drains and storm sewers.
Step 9- Provide students with experiment problem. Problem: 1 liter of water from the ocean and somehow mark each molecule of water in the glass. Dump the water back into the ocean and wait a long period of time for the marked molecules to mix and disperse evenly throughout the entire body of water. (volume 1.68 x 1016 cubic meters). Now take a second 1 liter sample of water from the body of water. How many of the original marked molecules are in the second 1 liter container?
Step 10- Calculating the problem:
Calculate the number of molecules in a liter of water. This is the number of molecules that will be marked.
Use the number of liters in a cubic meter = 1031/m3 to calculate the number of liters in the ocean or body of water:
1.68 x 1016 m3 x (1031/m3) = 1.68 x 1019 liters
Divide the numbers of marked molecules by the total number of liters in the ocean to find the number of marked molecules in the second sample.
Number of molecules in 1 liter after mixing.
3.35 x 1025 molecules/1.68 x 1019 liters = 2.0 x 106 molecules
= 2,000,000 molecules = 2 million molecules
Discussion Questions:
How many of these highly toxic substances that are released into our water systems are actually dispersed throughout our water systems? Is adding such chemicals to our water systems the solution to getting rid of them?
Assessment:
1. Students will complete a model of the water cycle containing all the parts of the water cycle: evaporation, precipitation, and condensation. Students will illustrate how water is transported around the earth. Models will be evaluated upon correct completion.
2. Students will write a one page paper describing how their community contributes to the pollution of our oceans and local water systems. Students will be assessed in accordance with "Writing Rubric."
3. Students will complete their pathways map. Map must demonstrate
how their community adds to the pollution of our oceans. Maps will be evaluated upon completion.
Curricular strands:
1. Art- designing and creating maps.
2. Language Arts- communication, collaborative worker, and critical thinking.
3. Math- setting up a story problem into an equation, problem solving, and mathematical connections.
4. Science- exploring the water cycle, society's influence on the water cycle, measuring, identifying variables, experimenting, and investigating.
5. Social studies- geography of the United States and Local area, map making, and tracing pollutants through the water cycle.
Possible Extensions:
1. A more in-depth mapping procedure of local wetland areas.
2. Students in higher grade levels could expand on this topic of
environmental mapping.
3. Instructors could introduce new technology that is being
developed to track pollution and the green house effect. For example, the use of Doppler radar to track pollution along with satellite imagery of our ocean waters.
4. Encourage students to develop other possible solutions to slow down the amount of pollution entering the oceans.
Bibliography:
Pollution Probe. 1991. The Canadian Green Consumer Guide. McClelland and Stewart. Toronto.