Welcome to Change is Simple’s Online Learning Platform!
Overview: In this learning unit, we are going to be exploring the biosphere! The biosphere is all of the regions of earth, from the surfaces, the water, and the atmosphere! Our first lesson is focused all around the water on earth; something we scientists call the hydrosphere. Check out the activity below, and be sure to check out the following lessons this week on the atmosphere and the lithosphere!
Grade Level: 2-4
** Older students, check out activity 2
Theme: Earth Systems
Supervision needed? Yes
Essential Questions:
Define the biosphere.
What are some examples of water in the three states of matter? (liquid, solid & gas)
Can you describe the different parts of the water cycle?
How does pollution effect water quality?
Materials Needed:
3 glass jars or pint glasses
One sheet of magazine paper (colorful!)
Water
Food coloring (preferably blue or purple)
Sand/dirt/gravel (one handful is plenty)
A stirrer (a spoon works great)
Standards:
Vocabulary:
Hydrosphere Evaporation Transpiration Condensation
Precipitation Water quality Transparent/transparency Physical pollution
Chemical pollution
Activity 1: Water Quality Study
Materials needed:
3 glass jars or pint glasses
One sheet of magazine paper (colorful!)
Water
Food coloring (preferably blue or purple)
Sand/dirt/gravel (one handful is plenty)
A stirrer (a spoon works great)
Make sure you’ve watched the video before you participate in this activity! Today, we are going to study how different types of pollution affect the transparency of water in rivers, lakes, and oceans. As you saw in the video, how transparent water is can tell a scientist a lot about how clean and healthy that water is!
Step 1: Place your empty glasses onto the magazine or colorful sheet of paper. Fill each glass jar 3/4 of the way fill with water. (Math question: 1. How many 1/4’s are in 1 cup? 2. If you filled your jar 3/4 full, how much of your jar remains empty?)
Step 3: Read the following passage carefully before continuing with your jars.
Each of your three jars represents a body of water in our hydrosphere.
The first jar represents a section of the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico. In the Gulf of Mexico, we drill for lots of oil, which can create oil pollution and other types of chemical pollution in the water.
The second jar represents part of the Charles River in Boston. This river meanders throughout the city and borders many roads, construction sites, and buildings. Unfortunately, lots of physical pollution (dirt, gravel, trash, salt) ends up traveling from the city to the river.
The third jar represents a lake in Western Massachusetts. This lake is surrounded by homes, however the sides of the lake are protected by trees and vegetation (plants) . This vegetation absorbs any chemical pollution and keeps lots of trash and other physical pollution from entering the water!
Step 4: Take jar one (the ocean), and put a few drops of your dark food coloring in the jar. This food coloring represents the oil spills and other forms of chemical pollution that can enter our water.
Step 5: Take jar 2 (the Charles River) and dump your gravel, sand or dirt in the jar. This dirt represents the physical pollution that ends up in our water.
Step 6: Grab your spoon, and mix the pollution in each jar. After mixing each jar, peer down into the jars.
Which jar is the most transparent?
Which jar is the least transparent?
What does this tell you about how pollution affects water quality?
After you finish this activity, you should be able to answer the questions above. If you are struggling, be sure to review the video, or continue reading below for a brief review.
When water is transparent/clear, more sunlight is able to travel through the water. This sunlight allows tiny plants called phytoplankton to grow. These plants are at the basis of many aquatic food chains. Small creatures eat these plants, and become food for larger fish. This is a very basic food chain, which we learned about a few weeks ago! This food chain is very important, because it ensures a healthy aquatic system and often is the basis for food chains that end with people on top (meaning we eat the fish that depend on these small phytoplankton).
When pollution enters our hydrosphere, whether it’s in the form of chemical pollution or physical pollution, it can get trapped in our water systems. This pollution makes water dark, murky, and cloudy. When water is dark and cloudy, less sunlight is able to enter the water and help plants grow. Where there is no sunlight, there is often no plant life!
Activity 2: An in Depth Look at the Water Cycle
This part of today’s lesson is a deeper dive into the topics covered in the video, best suited for 5th+.
In the video we just watched, we learned how water condenses into cloud formations, gets heavy and then falls as precipitation. That precipitation falls on water or land, and what happens next depends on where the precipitation falls.
Oceans, lakes, rivers: Water falling over other will become our surface water and eventually evaporate.
Plants and trees: Some water will transpire, but some water will enter the soil and water the roots.
Hard surfaces (pavement, cement): Water falling on hard surfaces will become surface run-off, and travel to a nearby body of water, collecting lots of pollution with it.
Soil: Water falling on dirt/soil will infiltrate the soil, meaning sink below the surface. This water will enter a body of water called our groundwater. Groundwater is water stored beneath our ground!
Ice: When rain falls over ice caps or glaciers, it will freeze. However, ice can evaporate, and turn from a solid to a water vapor/gas without ever becoming a liquid! This process is called sublimation.
Test your knowledge!
You just added some new terms tot he ones we talked about in the earlier part of the lesson. Here’s a list of the important ones we just mentioned along with some from earlier:
Surface water Ground water Sublimation Transpiration
Precipitation Condensation Evaporation
Look at this image and match each letter to one of the terms above. The answer key is below, so try not to look before you’ve matched every letter!
Content added to image, image sourced from: OpenClipArt.org
Answer key
A: evaporation
B: precipitation
C: condensation
D: ground water
E: surface water
F: transpiration
G: sublimation