- Welcome/Overview
- Content Notes
- Lesson and Activities
- Lesson 1-Living Systems-Where do we fit?
- Lesson 2- Explore Your "Wild" World!>
- Lesson 3- Building Food Chains and Food Webs>
- Lesson 4- Owls- A Mighty Predator
- Lesson 5- About Ecosystems>
- Lesson 6- We Are Explorers! (day1 of 2 lessons)>
- Lesson 7- We Are Explorers (day 2 of 2 lessons)
- Lesson 8-A Closer Look at Communities
- Lesson 9- What's in the Water?
- Lesson 10- Our Environment/Our World>
- Websites for Kids
- Books Used Throughout Lessons 1-10
- Assessment Page
Lesson 9 -What's in the water?
Objectives:
Get a jar of Creek Water for a related morning activity.
Who Polluted the Potomac? Activity supplies-
clear gallon jar of water-with wider mouth best. 1 plastic container per ingredient for the 16 ingredients discussed in the story. Each canister should be labelled using labels provided. All of the ingredients included should be safe for students to handle-natural or natural household products. See Link for more detailed instructions.
Lesson:
Morning activity before science lesson--best chance of animals surviving in the jar if we look early-
What is in our Water?* Activity- must secure fresh creek water, from Dogweed Creek, before school- have kids look at it with magnifying glasses and under a microscope if possible. Have them do this as they come into the classroom in the morning to set the stage for our Science exploration later. remind them that this is the same creek we visited last week together. Have them illustrate what they see in their science journal.( Concepts addressed in the pond Water activity can be addressed as we wait fro morning announcements and get settled in.)
Lesson:
Book and Website to Extend:
Be A Stream Explorer-Trout Unlimited- Kids Website That discuss the adaptations of a trout as well as looks at its food chain. Also discusses how to get involved. Talks about Fishing. Great one for the outdoors man!
EEK-Environmental Kids- additional ways kids can make a difference in conservation. Reiterates points made during class discussion.
A River Ran Wild by Lynne Cherry, This book tells the story of how The Nashua River in New England became polluted during the Industrial Revolution as did so many of our Nation's rivers. It continues to tell the story of how a few courageous citizens worked hard to be heard in order to save the river.
References:
A River Run Wild Site-
Lynne Cherry's website has some great information on how to incorporate her book into a lesson.
http://www.lynnecherry.com/a_river_ran_wild_19410.htm
Plankton Video-"Fish Tale My Secret Life a Plankton", taken from TED ED, You- tube Video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xFQ_fO2D7f0, accessed March 4, 2013. (Originally from edTEd.com.)Great story of how a fish gets started in life and the difficulties faced. Amazing that they survive.
*Pond Water Lesson- follows the lesson seen on the ScienceNeLinks website. http://sciencenetlinks.com/lessons/pond-2-life-in-a-drop-of-pond-water/, Advancing Science Serving Society, 2003. Here you can download details of the lesson.
"Who Polluted The Potomac?", taken off of the Website- Population Connection under Population Education.
http://www.populationeducation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=10. The PDF includes detailed lists of materials. Can use any small container since photo cases maybe harder to come by.
- Consider how population growth affects natural resources
- Create and interpret a partial model of an aquatic ecosystem to draw connections between individual actions and the cumulative affects those actions can have on our natural resources.
- List ways that humans can help conserve limited resources.
Get a jar of Creek Water for a related morning activity.
Who Polluted the Potomac? Activity supplies-
clear gallon jar of water-with wider mouth best. 1 plastic container per ingredient for the 16 ingredients discussed in the story. Each canister should be labelled using labels provided. All of the ingredients included should be safe for students to handle-natural or natural household products. See Link for more detailed instructions.
Lesson:
Morning activity before science lesson--best chance of animals surviving in the jar if we look early-
What is in our Water?* Activity- must secure fresh creek water, from Dogweed Creek, before school- have kids look at it with magnifying glasses and under a microscope if possible. Have them do this as they come into the classroom in the morning to set the stage for our Science exploration later. remind them that this is the same creek we visited last week together. Have them illustrate what they see in their science journal.( Concepts addressed in the pond Water activity can be addressed as we wait fro morning announcements and get settled in.)
Lesson:
- Read Trout Are Made Of Trees by April Pulley Sayre to introduce the lesson. Review key concepts during reading.
- Discuss the leaf's journey. Talk about how the tiniest of creatures in the water survive. Do they need what we need? How does this relate to what we saw in our creek water we observed this morning--
- Play Zooplankton Video-(6 minutes) discuss - earth/adaptations, Make the appropriate connections to the book we read and the video we just watched.
- Discuss the conservation ideas that were brought up in the book. Why is this important?
- Who Polluted the Potomac? Activity**
- Who Polluted the Potomac? What can we do to change this course?
- The Lesson plans include many discussion questions that can help us talk about our role as well as look at the big ideas behind preserving our water as they relate to our study of ecosystems, food chains, and food webs.
- Discuss with students how they can be a Steam Hero! refer to Books and Websites to extend.
- Reflection Question- Do you think it is easier to prevent pollution, or to clean it up later? Explain. Include answers in Science Journal.
- Homework:
- Tomorrow you will turn in your Ecosystem Foldables and Science Journal for review before we have to study for our test.
Book and Website to Extend:
Be A Stream Explorer-Trout Unlimited- Kids Website That discuss the adaptations of a trout as well as looks at its food chain. Also discusses how to get involved. Talks about Fishing. Great one for the outdoors man!
EEK-Environmental Kids- additional ways kids can make a difference in conservation. Reiterates points made during class discussion.
A River Ran Wild by Lynne Cherry, This book tells the story of how The Nashua River in New England became polluted during the Industrial Revolution as did so many of our Nation's rivers. It continues to tell the story of how a few courageous citizens worked hard to be heard in order to save the river.
References:
A River Run Wild Site-
Lynne Cherry's website has some great information on how to incorporate her book into a lesson.
http://www.lynnecherry.com/a_river_ran_wild_19410.htm
Plankton Video-"Fish Tale My Secret Life a Plankton", taken from TED ED, You- tube Video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xFQ_fO2D7f0, accessed March 4, 2013. (Originally from edTEd.com.)Great story of how a fish gets started in life and the difficulties faced. Amazing that they survive.
*Pond Water Lesson- follows the lesson seen on the ScienceNeLinks website. http://sciencenetlinks.com/lessons/pond-2-life-in-a-drop-of-pond-water/, Advancing Science Serving Society, 2003. Here you can download details of the lesson.
"Who Polluted The Potomac?", taken off of the Website- Population Connection under Population Education.
http://www.populationeducation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=10. The PDF includes detailed lists of materials. Can use any small container since photo cases maybe harder to come by.