This is information relating to the lesson topic and is here to help give you a better understanding of the topics and goals of this lesson.
These are worksheets for your students to complete.
This is a challenge for you and your class to complete as a group.
These are take-home handouts so that students and parents can further engage in the topic and implement sustainable changes in their everyday lives.
This is information relating to the lesson topic and is here to help give you a better understanding of the topics and goals of this lesson.
These are worksheets for your students to complete.
This is a challenge for you and your class to complete as a group.
These are take-home handouts so that students and parents can further engage in the topic and implement sustainable changes in their everyday lives.
Overview: In this activity, students will create a watershed using a piece of paper and coloring materials. Students will follow along to an instructor’s direction to learn what a watershed is and what you may find in one. After creating the watershed, students will conduct an experiment to understand where water travels through a watershed after a rainstorm. This lesson will highlight how water brings pollution from roads, construction zones, farms, and residential areas into our lakes, streams, and oceans.
Theme: Water pollution, natural resources
Grade Level: 2-5
Supervision needed? No
Essential Questions:
What is a watershed?
How does pollution travel through and enter a watershed?
How does pollution impact a watershed?
Materials Needed:
Paper
Coloring utensils
Spray bottle with water
Standards
3-LS4-4. Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem caused when the environment changes and the types of plants and animals that live there may change.
2-ESS2-1. Compare multiple solutions designed to slow or prevent wind or water from changing the shape of the land.*
K-2-ETS1-2. Develop a simple sketch, drawing, or physical model to illustrate how the shape of an object helps it function as needed to solve a given problem.
A watershed is an area or ridge of land that separates the flow of water to different rivers, streams, and lakes. All of the water that falls over a watershed will flow to the same basins (lakes and ponds). When rain falls, or snow melts, that water travels downhill over dirt, roads, and farms carrying whatever it comes in contact with. That means that the water collects and carries pollution to nearby lakes and oceans!
Pollution is any substance or item that is harmful to the environment it is in. Water pollution takes many different shapes. If rainfall or snowmelt travels over a farm, it can collect fertilizers from the soil and carry them to lakes and oceans. This fertilizer can harm aquatic life. Similarly, oil from cars on the road can harm aquatic life if it gets carried to oceans, lakes. etc.
Activity Duration: 15 Minutes
Materials Needed:
1. One sheet white paper
2. Assorted Markers
3. Spray bottle with water
Crumple up a sheet of white paper with both hands, then lay out and semi-flatten.
Color the ridges of your watershed in purple.
To create the towns in your watershed, draw three small towns (red) at three places in the valleys of your watershed. (A valley is a low point of land between mountains).
Next, draw a large city (orange) close to one of the towns. The towns and the city are locations in our watershed where we often find large amounts of oil on roads from cars and pollution from people.
Next, draw four farms (green) in different flat places throughout the watershed. Most farmers use fertilizers to help their crops (fruits and vegetables) grow! These fertilizers are helpful for the farms, but harmful if they end up in our waterways, causing a dangerous process called eutrophication (yoo·traa·fuh·kay·shn). To learn more about eutrophication, click here!
Finally, draw a coal mine (black) near one of the cities. Coal is a major fossil fuel. The process of mining coal from the earth usually contaminates nearby waters with highly acidic water and metals. To learn more about the process of coal mining, click here!
Soon, you are going to take your spray bottle or pipette and create rainfall over your watershed. Before you do this, you must make a hypothesis as to what will happen when you conduct this experiment!
Take your spray bottle and start to spray water on all areas of your watershed. Carefully observe the changes that occur. Be creative! You can make certain areas heavy rainfall areas and others lighter areas to observe the differences. Record your observations on a sheet of paper (pictures or words!)
Was your hypothesis (guess) from step 3 accurate?
What happened to the bodies of water after a serious rainstorm occurred over the cities and farms?
How could this runoff impact our watershed?
Now that you have completed this experiment, you hopefully understand that when it rains, pollution travels from our major towns and cities, farms, and industrial areas into our rivers, lakes, streams, and oceans. This can harm animals that live in the water and prevent humans from having clean drinking water. Let’s brainstorm some ways that we can help protect our watersheds from pollution!
The Change is Simple team has come up with three ways to help you get started:
Ride your bike or walk instead of riding in a car! The less we drive, the less oil ends up on our roads.
Pick up trash, even if it’s not yours! The best place for trash is in your trash bin, NOT outside where it can blow into our waterways!
Support local farmers that use little or no fertilizers! The less fertilizers used, the less that ends up in our oceans.
Overview: Today’s topic is trees and paper-making! We will be learning about different types of seeds and trees and why they are so important to us. We will complete a cool activity where we reuse old paper scraps to make new paper, conserving this amazing natural resource!
Grade Level: K-6
Theme: Natural Resources, Waste Reduction
Supervision needed? Yes
Essential Questions:
What is a compost critter?
How do they play a role in composting our food?
Materials Needed:
Scrap paper (check your recycling bin! Most types of paper will work; just avoid magazines and glossy paper, and be sure to remove any staples or plastic, i.e. address windows on envelopes)
Bowl of warm water
Sponge
2 Towels (kitchen towels, handkerchiefs, pillowcases, or old t-shirts)
Blender (students, please ask for permission & help to use a blender, and be sure to clean it out when you’re done! **If you don’t have a blender, you can still do this activity. Just follow the alternative directions in Step 2)
Standards:
Today, we have a fun Spring activity for you. We are going to make our own paper, which can also be planted! How? Watch this video to learn and get started:
You can use newspaper, printer paper, construction paper, etc. (no magazines or glossy paper)
**If you don’t have a blender, just rip the paper into smaller pieces (as small as you can), place in warm water and soak for at least 30 minutes. Jump to Step 5.**
Put 3-4 handfuls of the soaked paper pieces into the blender. Add about 1 cup of water. Blend for 10-15 seconds and check it. If you still see large pieces of paper, blend for another 10 seconds until it is smooth. You’ll want a consistency like applesauce. *Make sure to get permission and help to use the blender!
Sprinkle seeds (about a tablespoon) into the pulp and stir. You can use wildflower seeds, chia seeds, or whatever you might have.
Place a piece of wax paper or a paper grocery bag down, then lay a towel on top of it.
Get your hands right into that pulp! Scoop a few handfuls (let some water drain through your fingers over the bowl) onto your towel, and gently press it into the shape of your choice - circle, square, rectangle, oval, or a funky shape!
Take your sponge and gently press straight down onto the towel over the shaped pulp. This is drawing the moisture up from the pulp into the sponge, and down into the towel. Repeat this at least 5-6 times. Wring out the sponge in between presses if needed.
Carefully pick up the towel that’s underneath your paper by all 4 corners, keeping it as flat as possible (I recommend having someone help with this step). Put it in a safe place out of the way to dry. Be patient and try not to touch or move the paper until it is completely dry. Drying time will depend on how thick your paper is.
What will you do with your seed paper, once it dries? Will you draw or paint on it, or send a card to someone you miss right now? Please share your ideas, take a picture of your homemade paper, and send it to amy@changeissimple.org. We’d love to see your creations and hear your ideas!
We used recycled/scrap paper in order to make our paper today. Do you know how new paper is made? What natural resource is paper made from?
Why do you think it is important to reduce, reuse, and recycle the paper that we use?
Learn more about the process of how paper is recycled:
Soak the seed paper overnight
Cut the plantable seed paper into pieces and then cover with soil (1cm deep in a small pot).
Water it every day — make sure to keep the soil wet to let the seeds sprout.
In a few days, you’ll see the plants sprout and begin to grow.
Place it in a window that gets good sunlight, or plant it in your yard/garden.
If you do send the seed paper to someone else, be sure to include these directions for them so they can plant it once they’re done with it!
