Introduction

Congratulations! You and your group have been chosen to investigate how and why our water in being wasted. If you are successful in figuring out how to stop the pollution and waste you may make a significant impact on improving the quality of life on this planet!

Task

Your tasks will be:

To Experiment with filtering waste water

Create an educational pamphlet to help others learn about ways to conserve water

Design an evaluation tool to assess your at-home usage of water and ways to conserve and alleviate pollution.

Complete a journal entry after working in a small group, comparing and contrasting ways to treat wastewater after visiting on-line a working wastewater treatment plant and the Cobb County Wastewater treatment plant site’s page on processing drinking water.

Create a poster comparing and contrasting the treatment methods used by the two plants.

Complete postcards inquiring about questions you have about how Cobb County treats wastewater to turn it into drinking water

Process

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/wateruse.html

What’s The Problem?

With your group, visit this website by clicking on “What’s wrong with this picture?”. Divide the jobs. In your journal, identify all the ways water is being polluted.

With your group, design a pamphlet in Student Writing Center that will help to educate your friends and family about ways to keep our water clean.

Your group should now organize and create an evaluation tool (a table or chart) to help assess your at-home water usage and conservation measures.

What's wrong with this picture?

Waste!

Get serious! With your group, take an online tour of a working wastewater treatment plant.

Divide the work and describe what happens in each step of the process.

Visit Cobb County’s Wastewater Treatment website.

Explore the treatment process carefully and create a poster comparing and contrasting the two treatment processes.

Create a post card: Grab an index card and record any questions you have about Cobb County’s treatment process. Find the address of our treatment facility and address the front of the index card. Put on a stamp.

Working wastewater treatment plant

Cobb County wastewater treatment process

NOW, LET’S EXPERIMENT!

Okay, it’s up to you! Using this website (click on Scientific Inquiry-Filtration), discover how to filter impurities from our water.

Click on the following website, click on Leachate, print out the experiment journal page, and, working with your group, follow the instructions and FILTER THAT WATER! (You will find all the supplies on the Science table.)

Scientific Inquiry- Filtration

Evaluation:

These are the tasks you need to create for evaluation.

Journal

Postcard

Poster

Pamphlet

Evaluation chart for home use

Scientific Journal Worksheet

Conclusion

WOW! Look what you have accomplished! You have become a problem solver! You are now able to avoid polluting our water supply, and you can educate others by sharing your vast knowledge! You have already begun to improve the quality of life on this planet!

To continue your quest for worldwide water improvements go to the following websites:

http://www.omsi.edu/visit/physics/ww/

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/index.html

http://www.fi.edu/city/water/science.html

Credits

http://www.omsi.edu/visit/physics/ww/

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/index.html

http://www.fi.edu/city/water/science.html

http://galaxy.net/~k12/water/

http://www.epa.gov/owow/nps/kids/whatwrng.htm

http://water.cobbcountyga.gov/process.htm

http://www.epa.gov/safewater/kids/watertreatmentplant/index.html

Teacher Page

This page created by Virginia Shope to help students explore The Georgia Performance Standards.

Strand: Characteristics of Science -- Habits of Mind

S5CS1 Records Investigations [details]

Students will be aware of the importance of curiosity, honesty, openness, and skepticism in science and will exhibit these traits in their own efforts to understand how the world works.

Element: S5CS1d Safety Conscious

Take responsibility for understanding the importance of being safety conscious.

Element: S5CS1a Keeps Honest Records

Keep records of investigations and observations and do not alter the records later.

Element: S5CS1b Observations

Carefully distinguish observations from ideas and speculation about those observations.

Element: S5CS1c Valid Results

Offer reasons for findings and consider reasons suggested by others.

inquiry. Students will apply the following to inquiry learning practices:

Element: S5CS8a Apply Different Forms of Inquiry

Scientific investigations may take many different forms, including observing what things are like or what is happening somewhere, collecting specimens for analysis, and doing experiments.

Element: S5CS8b Apply Communication Skills

Clear and active communication is an essential part of doing science. It enables scientists to inform others about their work, expose their ideas to criticism by other scientists, and stay informed about scientific discoveries around the world.

Element: S5CS8c Understand How Scientists Use Technology

Scientists use technology to increase their power to observe things and to measure and compare things accurately.

Element: S5CS8d Relates to the Work of Science

Science involves many different kinds of work and engages men and women of all ages and backgrounds.