Big Idea:

Water is a valuable resource.

Essential Question: Who protects my water?

Global water quality is rapidly becoming one of today’s most important issues. With only 1% of all water on the planet accessible for human needs, taking care of this resource is absolutely essential to continued life on Earth. We explore groundwater in McHenry County, looking at the Fox and Kishwaukee watersheds. Using several hands on activities, this lesson really brings home how important it is for each of us to do our part. Students are assigned a career and discuss Best Management Practices to implement their “site” in McHenry County. They learn how to mitigate the effects of point and nonpoint source pollution.

• Describe why fresh water needs to be protected.
• Define: limited resource, model, watershed, run off, potable water
• Distinguish between point source and non-point source pollution.
• Classify causes of decreased water quality as poisons (pesticides, car oil, animal waste), plant foods (fertilizers), or fillers (litter, sediment, leaves and yard waste)
• Work as a team to reduce pollution and identify Best Management Practices for each problem area in the watershed model.
• Debate and decide who protects our fresh water.

Vocabulary:

• Water Pollution?
• Point Source pollution – pollutants that come from a specific source like a drainage pipe (or improperly maintained septic tank)
• Non-Point Source Pollution - pollutants originating from many sources that cannot be isolated. For example, each time it rains, run-off from the streets picks up litter, car lubricants, pet waste, excess fertilizers and pesticides, leaves, etc. These pollutants reach our waterways via wind, storm drains, and general run-off.
•  EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has determined that non point sources are the main cause of our nation’s water quality problems. Most people think that industry is responsible for the majority of our nation’s water quality problems, but that is not true.
• Watershed The rainwater that falls on the land flows downhill either on the surface or underground to drain into a larger body of water like a major river. 

NGSS Learning standards met by this lesson:

• Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems: MS LS2-5 Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services. * (including prevention of soil erosion…constraints – scientific, economic and social considerations)
• Engineering Design: ETS1.B Developing Possible Solutions

  MS-ETS1-4  Models of all kinds are important for testing solutions.

• Common Core ELA: Collaboration, Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas

• Earth’s Systems: MS ESS2-4 Develop a model to describe cycling of water through Earth’s systems driven by energy from the sun and force of gravity. (see disciplinary core ideas p.57 - ESS2.C The Role of Water in Earth’s Surface Processes and ESS3.A Natural resources)
• Human Impact: MS ESS3-3 Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.

Frontload Materials

Lesson Warm up -read this pdf first

Anatomy of a water shed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f63pwrMXkV4

How are watersheds related to each other? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYwa_0w1jGY

Follow-up Activities and Extended Learning

Check out our lending kits focused on sustainable living & mitigating human impact on the earth - in particular our water resource kit has a variety of science, mapping, and engineering activities related to groundwater and watershed protection.

Illinois Watershed Implementation Plan - visit the watersheds of Illinois.  Students can research watersheds in groups including looking at the history and geography of the shed.  Take a look at populations and discover the impact that each of us have to protect our watersheds here in Illinois and then thinking bigger - the world.

Letter to Parents - teachers please share via print, email or web with your students' families after our presentation

6th grade Lesson - letter to parents