Students are introduced to innovative stormwater management strategies that are being used to restore the hydrology and water quality of urbanized areas to pre-development conditions. Collectively called green infrastructure (GI) and low-impact development (LID) technologies, they include green roofs and vegetative walls, bioretention or rain gardens, bioswales, planter boxes, permeable pavement, urban tree canopy, rainwater harvesting, downspout disconnection, green streets and alleys, and green parking. These approaches differ from the traditional centralized stormwater collection system with the idea of handling stormwater at its sources, resulting in many environmental, economic and societal benefits. A PowerPoint® presentation provides photographic examples, and a companion file gives students the opportunity to sketch in their ideas for using the technologies to make improvements to 10 real-world design scenarios.

This activity is a hands-on modeling of the effects of pollution on our ground and surface water. Students will observe and record their observations as pollution is placed on the ground in their model and it is rained upon.

This lesson prevents an overview of the sources, groups, and types of pollutants affecting the environment. In addition, learners will take an active part in being the “pollution solution” rather than the problem.

Dissolved ions are present in all freshwater systems, but humans can change the chemical composition of freshwater in several ways. In this activity, students will examine the concentration of major ions in freshwater systems over time and reason about potential drivers of these changes.

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Through an overview of the components of the hydrologic cycle and the important roles they play in the design of engineered systems, students' awareness of the world's limited fresh water resources is heightened. The hydrologic cycle affects everyone and is the single most critical component to life on Earth. Students examine in detail the water cycle components and phase transitions, and then learn how water moves through the human-made urban environment. This urban "stormwater" water cycle is influenced by the pervasive existence of impervious surfaces that limit the amount of infiltration, resulting in high levels of stormwater runoff, limited groundwater replenishment and reduced groundwater flow. Students show their understanding of the process by writing a description of the path of a water droplet through the urban water cycle, from the droplet's point of view. The lesson lays the groundwork for rest of the unit, so students can begin to think about what they might do to modify the urban "stormwater" water cycle so that it functions more like the natural water cycle. A PowerPoint® presentation and handout are provided.

Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum/Geology of National Parks module. Students use the geometric mean and multiplicative standard deviation to examine the right-skewed distribution of nutrient concentrations in water-quality data at Mammoth Cave National Park.

Before engaging in lessons, students attempt to draw a diagram of a nitrogen cycle and add as many components as they can. This allows them to self-assess (and the teacher to assess) what they know about the nitrogen cycle.

Students research some of the nitrogen cycle components online at various websites or read printouts from websites provided by the teacher. They choose three or four facts of interest about their component and report to the rest of the class.

Each small group of students is given a set of materials including 20 objects, 20 picture-cards, 20 nitrogen cycle component explanation cards, 20 title cards for each nitrogen cycle component, heading cards for different environments such as the atmosphere, soil, water, etc., and many small arrows. The students work together to pair each object with its corresponding title card, description card, and picture card. Then these are all arranged to form a possible nitrogen cycle with various components clustered around heading cards and arrows used to show movement of nitrogen from one object to another.

Students then write humorous (limerick, couplet) poems or more serious poems (haiku) or structured poems (cinquain, diamante) to tell several facts about a component of the nitrogen cycle. They share their poems with the class.
Students may also engage in experiments with nitrogen fertilizer.

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Engineers design and implement many creative techniques for managing stormwater at its sources in order to improve and restore the hydrology and water quality of developed sites to pre-development conditions. Through the two lessons in this unit, students are introduced to green infrastructure (GI) and low-impact development (LID) technologies, including green roofs and vegetative walls, bioretention or rain gardens, bioswales, planter boxes, permeable pavement, urban tree canopies, rainwater harvesting, downspout disconnection, green streets and alleys, and green parking. Student teams take on the role of stormwater engineers through five associated activities. They first model the water cycle, and then measure transpiration rates and compare native plant species. They investigate the differences in infiltration rates and storage capacities between several types of planting media before designing their own media mixes to meet design criteria. Then they design and test their own pervious pavement mix combinations. In the culminating activity, teams bring together all the concepts as well as many of the materials from the previous activities in order to create and install personal rain gardens. The unit prepares the students and teachers to take on the design and installation of bigger rain garden projects to manage stormwater at their school campuses, homes and communities.

Students are provided with a 3D perspective of a virtual place, descriptions of geologic and cultural aspects, and a table with water-table elevations in groundwater and contaminant levels in water wells, springs, and rivers. Students use these data to contour water-table elevations, determine the direction of groundwater flow, and identify industrial sites that are likely sources of contamination. They then propose a remediation plan and identify water wells that are likely to remain uncontaminated in the future.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)