Keep It Clean
Students will identify factors that impact water quality. Students will identify ways that nature filters water and determine how much filtering it takes to clean a small amount of polluted water. Students will describe ways they can help improve water quality.
Keep it Clean Lesson Plan
Location: Forest Benches
Grades: 1-2
Objectives: Students will identify how everyday actions impact water quality. Students will investigate ways that nature filters water. Students will use a model to represent types of natural water filters to ascertain that it takes a great deal of natural filtering to clean a small amount of polluted water. Students will describe ways to avoid polluting water and ways to improve water quality.
Learning Standards:
ESE Standard 1: Ecological, Social, and Economic Systems
ESE Standard 3: Sustainability and Civic Responsibility
Materials: Keep it Clean storybook, bottles of color, bowl, 2 2 cup measuring cup, labeled plastic cups, several extra gallons of water in a bucket (use for new water in each round of activities), cards that depict natural forms of water filtration, “keep it clean mat”: a hand drawn laminated sheet with a lake and natural forms of water filtration pictured with the scene, table, waste water bucket.
Set up: Place table in front of long bench. Fill the plastic container with 1 ½ cups of water. Fill 2 cup measuring cups with water for students to use to pour water into cups. Nature scene under the bowl of water. Organize the cups and cards in the order: wetland plants, soil, worms, mycelium, microscopic plant like organisms, evaporation, rocks, tree roots. Set out bottles of food color that represent pollution.
Lesson Updates:
