How's The Water?

by Mona Muniz

Topic:
Water Pollution and impact on different districts in San Francisco Bay Area

Type of Web activity:
Gathering data and activities on the web

Materials / Software needed:
Web browser and/or email software.

Materials for activities as listed in Water Detectivies and Ph Game

Audience:
Teacher

Grade Level:
6-8

Time involved:
Several Days

Created on:
8/11/2000

The Web Science Workshop lessons were created in cooperation with the Exploratorium Teacher Institute .

This site developed and maintained by Deborah Hunt and Eric Muller .

3601 Lyon St.
San Francisco, CA 94123

OVERVIEW OF ACTIVITIES:

Key question: Is there a relationship between the quality of water and different districts? Who is affected most by water pollution?

This is a preliminary set of activities for math/science students in understanding how impact of pollution in various districts. Students will be begin by investigating water quality through some basic activities. Second students will need to familiarize themselves with basic mapping skills. The third part will be the search for actual data of the quality of water in their area.

First activity: Testing the quality of water

So students can give gain some experience with measureable differences in water, they will complete the activities Water Detectives and Ph Game . The activies will give students experiences in basic experiments to collect simple data.

Second activity: Map Background Review

This activity is a combination of a number of skills such as conducting basic science activities, collecting data, and exploring possible connections. Students will also need to be able to use maps as tools. A group of activies map activities can be found in the USGS map lessons.

Third activity: Finding a map of a particular area.

As students will need maps to answer the focus questions, they will need to search for a suitable map from Terra Serva or Yahoo Maps . They will use the maps as a guide as do search for data regarding water quality.

Fourth activity: Using the resources on the Internet to Explore any correlation between water quality and communities.

Questions to consider-

(?????? Still need further questions and resources)

What components of water quality are being measured/
Where are measures being made in the bay area?
What is urban extant?
How might the changes in urban extent affect water quality?
What relationships do you see with the data you have found and the communities on your map? Is there any pattern?

Use the following sites to begin your quest for answers to the above questions.

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