Name: ______Date:______

Period: 123456

“Color Me a Watershed”

Objectives:

  1. Identify that population growth and settlement can cause changes in land use.
  2. Analyze how land use variations in a watershed can affect the runoff of water.

Materials:

  • Copies of Map A, Map B and Map C
  • Colored Pencils
  • Calculators
  • Copies of Area of Land Coverage and Volume of Rain and Volume of Runoff

Part I: Color a Watershed

Procedure:

  1. Look at Maps A, B, and C. The maps represent changes in this land over al00-year period.
  2. Look at the key for each map. Choose a different color for each land area (e.g., color all forest areas green). Use the same color scheme for all three maps.
  3. Color the maps.
  4. Compare the sizes of the different areas on each map and among maps.
  5. Discuss one or more of the following questions:
  6. What happens to the amount forested land as you go from Map A to Map C?
  7. Which map has the most land devoted to human settlements?
  8. Where are most of the human settlements located?
  9. What effect might those human settlements have on the watershed? On wildlife?
  10. Would you have handled development differently? How?

Questions:

Answer all questions in complete sentences.

  1. How is plant coverthe same between all 3 maps? How is it different?

Plant cover between all 3 maps is the same…

Plant cover between all 3 maps is different…

  1. How is the land used? What is the same between all three maps, and what is different?

Land in all 3 maps is used to…

But in each map, land is used to do only…

  1. Which question did you discuss?
  1. What was the answer you came up with?
  1. Why is understanding “baseline” important for this activity?
  1. How do you think Baselines will be important next week as we discuss and investigate the health and current state of Puget Sound?
  1. What do you want to understand about changes in the sound in order to gain insights into the Sound’ health? Write 3 questions.

Question 1:

Question 2:

Question 3:

Part 2: Canopy Changes

To the right are two satellite images of Puget Sound from 1972 and 1996, showing the change in canopy cover.

  • The light areas are trees, the dark areas are human built structures
  • Use this image to answer the questions on the following page.
  1. What is a canopy?
  1. What does it look like on the satellite image?
  1. How has the baseline shifted?
  1. What might be the effect on Puget Sound of fewer trees today?

Online Research:

  1. Research online the answer to one of your questions and be prepared to share the answer with our class.

Question:

Answer:

Teacher Instructions:

Warm Up:

  1. What did the land and water around Issaquah look like 100 or 50 years ago?
  2. What happened when water fell on the ground then compared to now.
  3. Think of Lake Sammamish. Woud its appearance and condition have been altered over the years?

Tell students that maps can teach us about the past and possibly answer such questions.