Description: This lesson will cover water as a natural resource and the importance of its conservation. Water is used every day such as when showering, brushing teeth, washing hands, cooking meals, drinking, flushing the toilet, washing the car etc to prove it is an important natural resource to every student. We will demonstrate how much water is wasted when a faucet has a leak eventually to reveal the ways individuals can conserve water including taking shorter showers, turning off the water when brushing teeth etc.
Rationale: Students must be aware of water as a natural resource as it is a truly precious one that they use multiple times per day in some way or another. Only three percent of all the Earth’s water is considered fresh water so, this small percentage must be treated with care. Students must have the awareness of water as a delicate natural resource so that they use it mindfully and conserve as much as they can. This makes them not only learners but conscientious citizens.
Prior Knowledge: Students must have the prior knowledge that water is a natural resource. (They will be learning this in lessons prior). They must be able to brainstorm ways that they use water in their everyday lives. Students probably hold on to the misconception that water can never run out and deplete. They see their faucets running every time they need to use water to brush their teeth or shower etc. It is no surprise that they come in with this misconception. Another misconception they may have is that we will never run out of water because the ocean is so vast. While it is true that the ocean will always contain a lot of water, oceans contain salt water which we do not use like we do fresh water. In this lesson, the students’ imaginations will be captured when we calculate how many gallons of water our class uses in a day. They will be amazed by this number and hopefully be able to imagine how much water will be used if considering all of the classrooms in the school, in the US etc.
New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards:
6.5.2.A.2 Economic Literacy
Explain how products individuals eat, wear, and use impact their health, safety, and the environment.
6.6.2.E.3 Environment and Society
Act on a small scale, personalized environmental issues as littering and recycling and explain how such actions are important.
Objectives
Students will be able to examine the ways they use water every day
Students will be able to identify ways in which they can conserve water
Assessments
Students will list ways as a class
Students will draw pictures of conservation and write a short caption for their pictures
Hook: We will say, What were some of the ways that you and your family use water?” We will ask many students to share and create a running list of these ways on the board.
Activities: We will do the hook activity and then go into the main demonstration. We will demonstrate the “Leaky Faucet” activity for the class. We will split the class in half and do two demonstrations of this experiment so that all students can view the experiment and ask questions. We will say, “Put your thumb up if you have ever seen a leaky faucet? Maybe the water fountain leaks, you didn’t turn the faucet all the way off on your bathroom sink at home etc. Today we are going to show you a neat experiment that will let us be able to see how much water is wasted in just a minute from letting a faucet leak.” We will show our students our materials: A test tube, timer, a funnel, a coffee filter and a bottle of water. We will then tell them how we set up our simulated faucet experiment. The set up for the faucet is that the funnel is in the test tube and the coffee filter is in the bottom of the funnel to make the water come out slower. We will tell the students to watch what happens inside the test tube. We will time the leak for one minute and the measurements on the test tube will tell us how much water was wasted. We will choose one student per group to time the minute leak. We will ask the questions (listed below) before and during the experiment. After the demonstrations, we will call all of the students back to the carpet based on their behavior and good listening skills during the experiment. We will make another list of the ways we waste water every day, leaky faucets being just one of them. Most importantly, we will brainstorm ways we can conserve water. We will give them the instructions for the next activity and send them back to their desks for the final activity. At their desks, students will be asked to illustrate a way they can conserve water whether it is taking shorter showers, fixing faucet leaks etc. and write a short caption for their picture. When telling students the instructions, we will present an example so they can better visualize what they must do. Students will work on these illustrations until we ring the bell to say Finish Up and Clean Up. We will display these illustrations on our “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Til It’s Gone” mural.
Materials: test tube, funnel, coffee filter, bottle of water, timer, white paper, crayons or markers
Questions:
What do you see happening in the test tube? What is the problem here?
Can you estimate how much water you think will drip from the faucet?
What happened after the faucet started leaking?
What do you think was the point of this experiment? Why did we show this demonstration to you?
Can you think of another instance where water is wasted?
What are some of the problems of wasting water?
Why do you think it is important to conserve water?
What can you do to conserve water in your home?
Do you think conserving water is important? Why or Why not?
Examples: We will provide students a sample illustration with a caption so they know exactly what we would like for them to do. This will be presented when we are giving the instructions for the activity.
Closure: For our closure, we will have three of the students with the best illustrations and captions come up and share. We will then have all of the students bring their illustrations to the mural so that we can staple them on to the mural.
Individualization: This experiment of the leaky faucet will be extremely beneficial to the visual learners. By asking questions during and after the experiment, we will be able to reach auditory learners. The final activity with the illustration and caption has been individualized as well. It is a great alternative to a larger writing assignment as sometimes this type of assignment can be daunting to the lower learners in our class.
Follow-up Activities: As a follow up, we will explore more about resource conservation and especially focus on reusing and recycling to protect natural resources.
Rationale: Students must be aware of water as a natural resource as it is a truly precious one that they use multiple times per day in some way or another. Only three percent of all the Earth’s water is considered fresh water so, this small percentage must be treated with care. Students must have the awareness of water as a delicate natural resource so that they use it mindfully and conserve as much as they can. This makes them not only learners but conscientious citizens.
Prior Knowledge: Students must have the prior knowledge that water is a natural resource. (They will be learning this in lessons prior). They must be able to brainstorm ways that they use water in their everyday lives. Students probably hold on to the misconception that water can never run out and deplete. They see their faucets running every time they need to use water to brush their teeth or shower etc. It is no surprise that they come in with this misconception. Another misconception they may have is that we will never run out of water because the ocean is so vast. While it is true that the ocean will always contain a lot of water, oceans contain salt water which we do not use like we do fresh water. In this lesson, the students’ imaginations will be captured when we calculate how many gallons of water our class uses in a day. They will be amazed by this number and hopefully be able to imagine how much water will be used if considering all of the classrooms in the school, in the US etc.
New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards:
6.5.2.A.2 Economic Literacy
Explain how products individuals eat, wear, and use impact their health, safety, and the environment.
6.6.2.E.3 Environment and Society
Act on a small scale, personalized environmental issues as littering and recycling and explain how such actions are important.
Objectives
Students will be able to examine the ways they use water every day
Students will be able to identify ways in which they can conserve water
Assessments
Students will list ways as a class
Students will draw pictures of conservation and write a short caption for their pictures
Hook: We will say, What were some of the ways that you and your family use water?” We will ask many students to share and create a running list of these ways on the board.
Activities: We will do the hook activity and then go into the main demonstration. We will demonstrate the “Leaky Faucet” activity for the class. We will split the class in half and do two demonstrations of this experiment so that all students can view the experiment and ask questions. We will say, “Put your thumb up if you have ever seen a leaky faucet? Maybe the water fountain leaks, you didn’t turn the faucet all the way off on your bathroom sink at home etc. Today we are going to show you a neat experiment that will let us be able to see how much water is wasted in just a minute from letting a faucet leak.” We will show our students our materials: A test tube, timer, a funnel, a coffee filter and a bottle of water. We will then tell them how we set up our simulated faucet experiment. The set up for the faucet is that the funnel is in the test tube and the coffee filter is in the bottom of the funnel to make the water come out slower. We will tell the students to watch what happens inside the test tube. We will time the leak for one minute and the measurements on the test tube will tell us how much water was wasted. We will choose one student per group to time the minute leak. We will ask the questions (listed below) before and during the experiment. After the demonstrations, we will call all of the students back to the carpet based on their behavior and good listening skills during the experiment. We will make another list of the ways we waste water every day, leaky faucets being just one of them. Most importantly, we will brainstorm ways we can conserve water. We will give them the instructions for the next activity and send them back to their desks for the final activity. At their desks, students will be asked to illustrate a way they can conserve water whether it is taking shorter showers, fixing faucet leaks etc. and write a short caption for their picture. When telling students the instructions, we will present an example so they can better visualize what they must do. Students will work on these illustrations until we ring the bell to say Finish Up and Clean Up. We will display these illustrations on our “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Til It’s Gone” mural.
Materials: test tube, funnel, coffee filter, bottle of water, timer, white paper, crayons or markers
Questions:
What do you see happening in the test tube? What is the problem here?
Can you estimate how much water you think will drip from the faucet?
What happened after the faucet started leaking?
What do you think was the point of this experiment? Why did we show this demonstration to you?
Can you think of another instance where water is wasted?
What are some of the problems of wasting water?
Why do you think it is important to conserve water?
What can you do to conserve water in your home?
Do you think conserving water is important? Why or Why not?
Examples: We will provide students a sample illustration with a caption so they know exactly what we would like for them to do. This will be presented when we are giving the instructions for the activity.
Closure: For our closure, we will have three of the students with the best illustrations and captions come up and share. We will then have all of the students bring their illustrations to the mural so that we can staple them on to the mural.
Individualization: This experiment of the leaky faucet will be extremely beneficial to the visual learners. By asking questions during and after the experiment, we will be able to reach auditory learners. The final activity with the illustration and caption has been individualized as well. It is a great alternative to a larger writing assignment as sometimes this type of assignment can be daunting to the lower learners in our class.
Follow-up Activities: As a follow up, we will explore more about resource conservation and especially focus on reusing and recycling to protect natural resources.
