Science Env’l Issues & Env’l Engineering, Grade 5

Grade Five

Environmental Issues &

Environmental Engineering

STUDENT BOOK

NAME:
TEACHER:

Harford County Public Schools

102 South Hickory Avenue

Bel Air, Maryland 21014

July, 2010

Environmental Issues & Environmental Engineering

Activity Title List

Activity 1: What Issues Impact Our Environment?

Activity 2: How Do Engineers Use Basic Resources to Design Technologies?

Activity 3: Renewable or Not?

Activity 4: How does Growth Affect Our Resources?

Activity 5: Why is Conservation Important?

Activity 6: What are Sources of Water Pollution?

Activity 7: Who are Environmental Engineers?

Activity 8: What Materials will Create the Best Water Filters?

Activity 9: How can the Engineering Design Process be Used to Design a Water Filter?

Activity 10: What’s a Wetland Worth?

Activity 11: What Unique Creature Inhabits an Estuary?

Activity 12: How do Organisms get Energy from a Food Chain?

Activity 13: How do Predator/Prey Interactions Affect an Ecosystem?

Activity 14: How do Organisms Change Our Ecosystems?

Activity 15: How do Organisms Help Maintain Our Ecosystems?

Activity 16: How can we Debate Environmental Issues from The Lorax?

Activity 1: What Issues Impact Our Environment?

Enduring Understanding (Science): By maintaining the delicate equilibrium of Eco-systems, we can preserve our natural resources.

Enduring Understanding (Engineering): Environmental engineers try to find solutions to problems with air, water, soil, and the natural environment.

Guiding Questions:

  1. Why are energy sources needed for all organisms to grow and survive?
  2. How do human activities cause negative and changes in the environment?
  3. How do decisions regarding the use of natural resources have benefits, drawbacks, unexpected consequences and tradeoffs?
  4. What is environmental engineering?
  5. What is the engineering design process?

Key Concept(s): Technology, Cause and Effect, Interdependence

Materials:

·  Power Point - Environmental Scenes

·  Book - Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg

ScienceSaurus Reference Handbook – pages 318-319 (Natural Resources and the Environment); pages 1-71 (Doing Science)

Warm-Up:

  1. Listen as your teacher reads Just a Dream aloud. Think about your environment and ways that it is impacted, both positively and negatively.
  1. Discuss the story with your classmates.

Let’s Find Out:

1.  Watch and listen as your teacher presents the Environmental Scenes PowerPoint.

2.  Discuss with your classmates the types of environmental issues addressed in the

Environmental Scenes PowerPoint.

What Have We Learned?

1.  What are some issues (negative impact) that affect the environment in Maryland? Cite specific examples from the Environmental Scenes PowerPoint.

______

______

2.  Think about how the characters in Just a Dream changed their habits in order to help protect the environment (positive impact). What can you do at your house to help protect the environment?

______

______

Extensions:

1.  Use what you learned about Maryland’s environment and information from Just a Dream to draw a picture of Walter dreaming about a healthy Maryland environment.

2.  Have students create advertisements to encourage fellow students to help protect Maryland’s environment. Hang the advertisements around your school.

Activity 2: How Do Engineers Use Basic Resources to Design Technologies?

Enduring Understanding (Science): By maintaining the delicate equilibrium of Eco-systems, we can preserve our natural resources.

Enduring Understanding (Engineering): Environmental engineers try to find solutions to problems with air, water, soil, and the natural environment.

Guiding Questions:

  1. Why are energy sources needed for all organisms to grow and survive?
  2. How do human activities cause negative and changes in the environment?
  3. How do decisions regarding the use of natural resources have benefits, drawbacks, unexpected consequences and tradeoffs?
  4. What is environmental engineering?
  5. What is the engineering design process?

Key Concept(s): Equilibrium, Systems, Natural Resources

Materials:

·  Product web, Pencil Webbed Diagram

·  School Supplies

ScienceSaurus Reference Handbook – pages 356-357 (Scientists/Engineers); 360-363 (Technology); pages 130-131 and pages 332-333 (Basic Resources)

Warm-Up:

How would you describe a technology? List some examples:

Now, examine a wooden pencil carefully.

Is the pencil an example of a technology? YES OR NO

Who designs technologies? ______- someone who uses his or her knowledge of science, math and creativity to design objects or process problems.

With your group, discuss how a pencil is created and the materials a pencil is made from. What natural resources does it comes from? ______

Look at the Pencil Webbed Diagram. Highlight the end of each branch which ends in sun, soil, or water. Highlight soil in brown, sun in yellow, and water in blue. These are the three basic resources.

Let’s Find Out:

1. Take out a school supply, other than a pencil. This school supply is an example of a technology that has been designed by an engineer. Think about how this technology is made and where it comes from. Consider how the technology solves a problem for you.

2. Complete the Technology Around Us activity in the Student Booklet.

3. In the space provided, draw a webbed diagram of your technology. Be sure to trace it back to the three basic resources- sun, soil and water.

4. In your webbed diagram, highlight the basic resources of soil, water, and the sun.

What Have We Learned?

1.  Technologies, including food items, can be traced to what three basic resources? Explain why these are called basic resources.

2.  What is an engineer?

3.  What is technology? List examples of technologies.

Pencil Webbed Diagram



Draw a webbed diagram of your technology.

Activity 3: Renewable – or Not?

Enduring Understanding (Science): By maintaining the delicate equilibrium of Eco-systems, we can preserve our natural resources.

Enduring Understanding (Engineering): Environmental engineers try to find solutions to problems with air, water, soil, and the natural environment.

Guiding Questions:

  1. Why are energy sources needed for all organisms to grow and survive?
  2. How do human activities cause negative and changes in the environment?
  3. How do decisions regarding the use of natural resources have benefits, drawbacks, unexpected consequences and tradeoffs?
  4. What is environmental engineering?
  5. What is the engineering design process?

Key Concept(s): Equilibrium, Systems, Natural Resources.

Materials:

·  Renewable-or Not? Card

·  Post-it-notes – one pack per group

ScienceSaurus Reference Handbook – pages 320-331 (Natural Resources)

Warm-Up:

1.  Mark each statement with a T for true or F for false. If you do not know the answer, make a prediction.

T or F?

______1. Natural resources such as air, water and sunlight come from nature.

______2. Renewable resources are resources whose supplies never stop.

______3. Humans only use renewable resources.

______4. Natural resources such as trees are nonrenewable resources.

______5. Nonrenewable resources are replaced only when made in factories.

______6. Earth’s natural resources will be used up in 25 years or less.

2. Read the definitions your teacher has placed on the overhead. In your own words, write the definition, and create a quick picture of what the word means to you.

Term / Simple Definition / Illustration
Natural Resources
Renewable resources
Nonrenewable resources

Let’s Find Out:

Part 1 ~

1.  When your teacher directs you to do so, silently circulate through the classroom, looking at objects there and outside the window. Record ten items for further investigation in the spaces below. Be creative when choosing items.

2.  With a partner, discuss the proper placement of an item in the category of renewable or nonrenewable resources. You should record both your terms and any new ones your partner has written down. Consider what the item is made from, and where the parts come from. Think about the main material it is made from.

Renewable / Nonrenewable

3.  On each post-it note, write your best example of renewable and nonrenewable resources, two of each type. Follow your teacher’s direction to place them on the appropriate poster, and then discuss the class listings.

Part 2 ~

1.  The teacher will give your group a scenario card to examine and discuss, following the procedure described below.

2.  Assign roles of reader, timekeeper, resource person and reporter. Write their name in the blank.

a.  ______Reader- reads the scenario to the group

b.  ______Time keeper- keeps the group discussion going, and tracks the time left so the group is finished on time

c.  ______Resource person- Signals the teacher that something needs to be explained to the group such as a word or idea found in the scenario.

d.  ______Reporter- Summarizes the group’s discussion and informs the class of what was discovered

3.  Discuss the facts found on the scenario cards and summarize what it means to the planet and the idea of renewable resources.

4.  Agree on the summary statement the reporter will tell the class. Record it below. Be sure to include what factors affect different natural resources.

5.  As each group reports out, record factors that can impact a resource’s ability to renew supplies.

a.  Fresh water’s renewal is threatened by:

b.  Trees’ renewal is threatened by:

c.  Oxygen and clean air renewal is threatened by:

d.  Land and soil renewal is threatened by:

e.  Habitat renewal is threatened by:

f.  Fish renewal is threatened by:

What Have We Learned?

1.  Explain the difference between renewable and nonrenewable resources.

2.  Explain how the uses of a tree can help the environment.

3.  Explain how the uses of a tree can hurt the environment.

Extensions:

  1. “Think globally, act locally.” First, think about what that means. After what you have learned in this experience, what can you do today to help save natural resources?
  1. List the top five natural resources you depend upon the most.


Activity 4: How Does Growth Affect Our Resources?

Enduring Understanding (Science): By maintaining the delicate equilibrium of Eco-systems, we can preserve our natural resources.

Enduring Understanding (Engineering): Environmental engineers try to find solutions to problems with air, water, soil, and the natural environment.

Guiding Questions:

  1. Why are energy sources needed for all organisms to grow and survive?
  2. How do human activities cause negative and changes in the environment?
  3. How do decisions regarding the use of natural resources have benefits, drawbacks, unexpected consequences and tradeoffs?
  4. What is environmental engineering?
  5. What is the engineering design process?

Materials:

·  PowerPoint - Harford Glen Aerial Photos

Warm-Up:

1.  Working with your group, brainstorm what happens to an area when its population increases dramatically. Record your ideas, and share with the class.

2.  What needs to happen as a result?

Let’s Find Out:

1.  View the PowerPoint, Harford Glen Aerial Photos.

2.  With your group, examine each map closely. Do you notice any differences between the map from 20 years ago, and the map from today?

3.  Choose one area to examine closely. Record any positive or negative impacts you observe in regards to your chosen area of land. Be specific.

What Have We Learned?

1.  What changes did you observe on the maps? [GQ3]

2.  What has happened to our waterways, forests, and wetlands as a result of increased population? [GQ3]

3.  Think about the relationships among plants, animals, and their environment found in any ecosystem. What types of plants and animals might have been found in these waterway 20 years ago? What may have happened to these plants and animals as a result of overpopulation? [GQ3]

4.  What benefits do increased population and building have on our county? How does this same concept harm our county? [GQ3]

Extension:

Write a persuasive letter to a pretend builder who is planning on building on or near a wetland area. The letter should incorporate reasons why the builder should reconsider building in this area, and include persuasive language.

Activity 5: Why is Conservation Important?

Enduring Understanding (Science): By maintaining the delicate equilibrium of Eco-systems, we can preserve our natural resources.

Enduring Understanding (Engineering): Environmental engineers try to find solutions to problems with air, water, soil, and the natural environment.

Guiding Questions:

  1. Why are energy sources needed for all organisms to grow and survive?
  2. How do human activities cause negative and changes in the environment?
  3. How do decisions regarding the use of natural resources have benefits, drawbacks, unexpected consequences and tradeoffs?
  4. What is environmental engineering?
  5. What is the engineering design process?

Key Concept(s): Equilibrium, Systems, Natural Resources.

Materials:

·  Green colored pencils

·  Blue colored pencils

ScienceSaurus Reference Handbook – pages 187-193 (Earth’s Water); pages 344-349 (Conserving Resources)

Warm-Up:

Watch as your teacher demonstrates the different types of water we have on Earth.

·  The 100 mL of water in the graduated cylinder represents all the water in the world.

·  The 3 mL of water in the 250 mL beaker represents all the fresh-water in the world. The remaining 97 mL of water in the graduated cylinder represents all the saltwater in the world.

·  The 20 drops of freshwater in chemplate depression 1 represents all the unfrozen freshwater. The water remaining in the beaker represents ice. This is found in the Arctic, Antarctic, and glaciers.

·  The ten drops of the water in chemplate depression 2 represents the usable freshwater in the world. Most freshwater is too deep in the ground to use or is in the atmosphere in the form of water vapor or liquid droplets in clouds.

·  The remaining four drops of water in depression 3 represent the unpolluted pure freshwater available to use in the world.

Let’s Find Out:

Complete “The Earth: Land and Water” worksheet.

The Earth

(Land and Water)

Key:    

Land Water Unusable land Unusable water

(green) (blue) (green) (blue)

  1. There are 100 blocks, representing all the land and water in the world.
  1. Color 25 blocks green. This represents the land on the earth. Remember that there are seven major land masses.
  1. Color the 75 remaining blocks blue. This represents all the water on the earth.
  1. What percentage of the world is land? ______
  1. What percentage of the world is water? ______
  1. Much of the land is desert, ice, or mountainous. Place an X in 15 of the 25 land boxes to show this land is unusable. What fraction of the land is unusable? Simplify this fraction.

______= ______