How Clean is the Water in Your Town?

by Thuan Dao, Colecia Hollie, April Lisa Olivarez, Joe Slapak

Home

Introduction

Investigating Our Watershed

Name: Joe Slapak

Title of Lesson: Investigating Our Watershed

Length of Lesson: Two 50 minute class periods

Description of Class: High School Biology/Environmental Science

Sources for lesson:

www.epa.gov/water

www.lcra.org

TEKS addressed:

(2) Scientific processes. The student uses scientific methods during field and laboratory investigations. The student is expected to:

(A) Plan and implement investigative procedures including asking questions, formulating testable hypotheses, and selecting equipment and technology;

(B) Collect data and make measurements with precision;

(D) Communicate valid conclusions.

(5) Science concepts. The student knows the interrelationships among the resources within the local environmental system. The student is expected to:

(A) Summarize methods of land use and management;

(B) Identify source, use, quality, and conservation of water;

(D) Identify renewable and non-renewable resources that must come from outside an ecosystem such as food, water, lumber, and energy;

(E) Analyze and evaluate the economic significance and interdependence of components of the environmental system; and

(F) Evaluate the impact of human activity and technology on land fertility and aquatic viability.

The Lesson:

I. Overview

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce the concept of a watershed and what affects the quality of water in a watershed. water collected from Barton Springs using a series of different test.

II. Performance or learner outcomes

Students will be able to:

Define watershed.

Describe factors that affect the quality of water in a watershed.

Learn that one watershed is most likely part of a much larger watershed.

III. Resources, materials and supplies needed

EPA film on watersheds

IV. Supplementary materials, handouts

Large paper for posters

Colored markers for posters

Five-E Organization

Teacher Does

Student Does

Engage:

Learning Experience:

Students will be asked to describe what they think make up a watershed.

Anticipated student responses:

Students should answer that a watershed is an area that drains into a common waterway, such as a creek, pond, lake, river, or ocean.

Evaluate

Lead students in a discussion of different levels of what might be considered a waterway.

Explore:

Learning Experience(s):

Students will watch an EPA film regarding elements that make up and affect watersheds.

Students will then be divided into groups of four. Each group will be given a different area of town that forms a watershed, such as downtown, their neighborhood, a recreational area, a remote non-urban area. They will be asked to draw a poster showing where the water comes from that flows into a common waterway in that area. They will include sources of matter that are carried into the waterway.

Anticipated student responses:

Students should note that water may flow into a waterway from streets, parking lots, run-off drains, hills, yards, smaller streams into creeks or from smaller sources into larger ones, commercial sources such as rock quarries, garbage dumps, etc.

Sources of matter that should be included will depend on the area the students are evaluating. This may include rock, dirt, silt, trash, organisms from the soil, oil and antifreeze from parking lots, fertilizer and insecticides from lawns, etc.

Evaluate

Teacher will go to each group to determine if they are considering all of the factors within their given area.

Explain:

Each group will present their poster in front of the class.

After each group has presented their poster, a class discussion will point out things that are common and different characteristics of all of the watersheds that have been presented.

Anticipated student responses:

Students will be expected to actively participate in the discussion. Common characteristics of all watersheds should include water moving into larger waterways and rock and silt being carried into waterways. Some differences might be chemical carried from industry or agriculture.

Evaluate

After discussion, have students write down two characteristics common to and different in watersheds discussed.

Extend / Elaborate:

Point out to students that watersheds can be considered over a small or very large area, and that the waterway considered in their area may be part of a larger watershed covering a larger area. Ask students to predict where most of the water in the Austin watershed will end up.

Also discuss how what is carried into the watershed affects the organisms in the watershed.

Anticipated student responses:

Students should note that most of the water will end up in creeks, rivers (the Colorado), and eventually in the Gulf of Mexico.

Evaluate

Students write a one page paper discussing what they and others around them can do to help maintain the quality of the water in the watershed.