Shannon Rosenkrans
Payson Seymour High School
srosenkrans@cusd1.org

Not by my River!


Teacher Page

Introduction

This WebQuest was developed as part of the WaterCAMPWS teacher project. The Center of Advanced Materials for the Purification of Water with Systems is a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center.  The mission of The WaterCAMPWS is to develop revolutionary new materials and systems for safely and economically purifying water for human use, while simultaneously developing the diverse human resources needed to exploit the research advances and the knowledge base created.

This lesson is intended for students to learn more about water quality and how hog-farming practices affects it.  Students will incorporate information from the internet as well as classroom activities and laboratories to create a final project of a PowerPoint presentation.

Learners

This WebQuest has been developed for high school students enrolled in Environmental Science. This could easily be used in an agriculture class.

This will follow lessons on water, water quality and watersheds.  Many of the students in my classes also take Agricultural classes, this is not necessary for this project, but may be more beneficial and hopefully motivational.

Standards

Illinois State Science Standards Addressed

11.A.5a  Formulate hypotheses referencing prior research and knowledge
11.A.5b  Design procedures to test the selected hypotheses
11.A.5c  Conduct systematic controlled experi­ments to test the selected hypotheses
11.A.5d  Apply statistical methods to make predictions and to test the accuracy of results.
11.A.5e  Report, display and defend the results of investigations to audiences that may include professionals and technical experts
13.B.5a  Analyze challenges created by inter­national competition for increases in scientific knowledge and technological capabilities (e.g., patent issues, industrial espionage, technology obsolescence).
13.B.5b  Analyze and describe the processes and effects of scientific and technological breakthroughs
13.B.5c  Design and conduct an environmental impact study, analyze findings and justify recommendations.
13.B.5d  Analyze the costs, benefits and effects of scientific and technological policies at the local, state, national and global levels (e.g., genetic research, Internet access).
13.B.5e  Assess how scientific and techno­logical progress has affected other fields of study, careers and job markets and aspects of everyday life

 

The intended communications skills encouraged by this lesson include

·        Inference-making

·         Critical thinking

·        Creative production

·         Creative problem-solving

·        Laboratory investigations and interpretations

·         Observation and categorization

·         Comparison

·         Teamwork

·         Compromise

Process

1.      You will form groups of 2 or 3 to a team.

2.      As individuals you are responsible for doing each worksheet and lab and turning in your own work.  These are not for group points.

3.      Together you will investigate the different issues.

4.      You are to develop a 10-minute PowerPoint presentation with a minimum of 20 slides. These slides are to include the following:

5.      An introduction slide, with your group member’s names and a title.

6.      A credits slide with all bibliographic information included.

7.      Data collected in the labs.

8.      Describe the properties of water.

9.      Describe what surface and ground water are, and how they occur.

10.  Describe the geological features of the Mississippi river basin.

11.  Discuss water quality and the regulations for drinking water.

12.  Discuss water quality and regulations for wastewater.

13.  Describe wastewater issues and possible contaminants

14.  Describe a containment lagoon

15.  Discuss alternative uses for containment lagoon wastes

16.  Discuss the federal and state regulations for hog farming

17.  Describe and defend your position.  Your position should support whether or not the hog lagoon is polluting the Mississippi river.

 

There are worksheets that go along with many of the websites for the background information to be learned.  These will be found here, once I have them all developed.  There are also lab sheets in the process of being developed as well.

I expect this to take 2-3 weeks to complete.  We will do the worksheets and labs as we go along in this WebQuest, we will not be in the computer lab each day. I will assign different tasks to be completed on different days to attempt to keep the students more on task.  This could be done interdisciplinary, if you have an agricultural department and a teacher there willing to work with you.  I do intend to have my ag teacher look this over and give me a review on the materials.  I will update this if needed after that.

Resources Needed

WebQuest resources include:

  • Environmental Science books
  • Computer lab access
  • Worksheets and labs
  • All the websites that I have provided for the students are found in the credits section of the teacher page, or as links on the student’s pages.  I am also going to have them do some research on their own.  Specifying that they need to use quality Internet sites, with a discussion as to what that means.

This is going to be a one person taught WebQuest. If I can find some speakers to come in from the community to discuss water issues or hog farming issues, then that will be included.  You could have fieldtrips with this as well.

Evaluation

The rubric can be found in the evaluation section of the student page. Feel free to modify this to your own preferences; this is the style of rubric that I like to use.

Conclusion

My intentions are to get the students thinking about the impact of humans on the quality of water in their area and in other parts of the world. I choose to use hog farming, since there are some in the area and my intentions were to make this relevant to their situations.  This is not intended to in any way to put down the importance of hog farming.  I see hog farming as very important, seeing as I eat Low-Carb and Pigs are an integral part of my way of eating.

Credits

The following websites have been used in this WebQuest, as well as any others that the students may choose to find in their research.

http://www.nps.gov/miss/features/factoids/
http://www.city-data.com/city/Payson-Illinois.html
http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/undergrad/ag_eng_info.htm
http://www.watercampws.uiuc.edu/

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/waterproperties.html

http://www2.ctic.purdue.edu/KYW/Brochures/GroundSurface.html

http://il.water.usgs.gov/proj/lirb/sw/

http://www.epa.state.il.us/regulations.html

http://www.epa.state.il.us/water/

http://www.epa.state.il.us/water/rules-regulation.html

http://www.ipcb.state.il.us/SLR/IPCBandIEPAEnvironmentalRegulations-Title35.asp

http://www.hoglagoon.com/

http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/eb1642/eb1642.html

http://www.extsoilcrop.colostate.edu/Newsletters/2004/Antibiotics/lagoons.html

http://www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/univ_relations/news_services/press_releases/00_10/259.htm

http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcsupply/5systchan5.html

http://www.epa.state.il.us/p2/fact-sheets/hog-facts.html

http://www.actden.com/pp/

http://www.ers.usda.gov/statefacts/IL.htm

http://www.nppc.org/

http://www.nass.usda.gov/Census_of_Agriculture/index.asp

I would also like to say Thank you to all the instructors, graduate students and coordinators of WaterCAMPWS and Lynn Burdick and Rae Clementz from the Office of Educational Technology at the University of Illinois.