US Environmental Protection Agency
Non-Point Source Pollution
Investigate the different types of pollution that storm drain runoff carries into oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams with this class demonstration. Using an aquarium and an assortment of everyday items that contaminants like motor oil,...
Safe Drinking Water Foundation
Cause and Effect of Water Pollution
Your students will become aware of and be able to list the major types and sources of water pollution. Being able to recognize that the household, agriculture, and industry sectors of society contribute to water pollution, is the main...
Teach Engineering
Introduction to Water Chemistry
What are the issues surrounding water quality? Viewers of this short presentation gain information about the importance of clean water, the lack of fresh water, water contamination, and ways that engineers treat water.
Curated OER
Water Conservation
Students explore types of water reserves. In this water conservation instructional activity, students brainstorm ways water are used in their homes. Students use a graduated cylinder to simulate the amount of water on Earth and the...
National Institute of Open Schooling
Water Pollution
Fifteen million children under the age of five die each year due to diseases in their drinking water. Water pollution is the topic of lesson 34 in the series of 36. Scholars, through reading and discussing, study numerous aspects of...
Kenan Fellows
Determining Stream Health by the Diversity and Types of Benthic Organisms
How diverse are the benthic organisms found in local streams? Using the information learned in previous lessons on identification of macroinvertebrates and on calculating stream index values, groups determine the health of local...
Curated OER
Waters of the Earth
Students make a striking visual display showing the distribution of water on earth.
Michigan Sea Grant
Water Quantity
It may be tricky for a young mind to conceptualize that less than 1% of all water on earth is useable for humans to drink. Simulating the amount of fresh water available on earth by removing measured amounts of water from a five-gallon...
Curated OER
Unit 1: Water is Life: The Heart and Science Behind this Phrase
Water, water, everywhere — but will there be enough to drink? Check out these detailed lesson plans to meet NGSS water cycle and CCSS literacy standards in your science classroom. Learners do a close reading of a challenging, poetic text...
American Chemical Society
Why Does Water Dissolve Sugar?
Did you know that if you wait long enough, the M on the outside of an M and M will float to the surface when submerged in water? Learners observe the sugar coating of an M and M while it is dissolving in water. They explain how this...
Smarter Balanced
Renewable Energy
Renewable and non-renewable energy sources are the focus of a series of activities that prepare learners for a performance task assessment on energy. Groups identify the various sources of energy and classify these sources as either...
Polar Trec
Where is the World's Water?
Scholars discover the amount of the Earth's water in various locations such as the ocean, ice, the atmosphere, etc. They then make a model of the how much water those percentages represent. Finally, analysis questions bring the concepts...
Curated OER
Water Around Us
Pupils create a collage of human land use activities around a body of water. Students evaluate the effects of different kinds of land use on wetland habitats, and create a list of pros and cons for each land use.
Safe Drinking Water Foundation
Water Pollution
An introductory instructional activity to a unit on water pollution, young environmentalists are asked to brainstorm examples of pollutants in water. This instructional activity will help develop a sense of what water pollution is and...
Centers for Ocean Sciences
Ocean and Great Lakes Literacy: Principle 1
Is your current lesson plan for salt and freshwater literacy leaving you high and dry? If so, dive into part one of a seven-part series that explores the physical features of Earth's salt and freshwater sources. Junior hydrologists...
University of Florida
Protecting Our Water Resources
Teach young environmentalists to protect their planet's resources with a set of interactive experiments. Kindergartners and other youngsters learn about watersheds and the water cycle, while older elementary learners focus on fertilizer...
EngageNY
Gathering Information about Water Management: Assessing and Reading Internet Sources, Day 3
Water is life! Using the informative resource, scholars first read two informational articles about water management in agriculture. Then, they use a Venn diagram to contrast the different types of evidence authors use to support a...
Curated OER
Water
Third graders study different bodies of water and how they fit into the water cycle. They explain that materials exist in different states (solid, liquid and gas) and change from one to another, that there are systems, order, and...
Curated OER
Surface Water and Groundwater
Students examine distribution of water and minerals. In this surface and groundwater lesson, students conduct an experiment with fresh and salt water making hypothesis and drawing conclusions about minerals.
Chymist
Testing the Waters
Should you trust the water you drink every day? The hands-on activity has scholars test water from different sources for contaminants. Pupils perform chemical testing and make conclusions about pH, hardness, iron, chlorine, lead,...
NOAA
Importance of Deep-Sea Ecosystems – The Benthic Drugstore
You never know what you will find next in the deep sea ecosystem. So far, scientists have found items that work as anti-tumor agents, anti-inflammatory agents, agents that stop uncontrolled cell division, and much more. The lesson begins...
NOAA
Importance of Deep-Sea Ecosystems – Chemists with No Backbones
Marine invertebrates offer us many new options for developing pharmaceutical drugs, such as w-conotoxin MVIIA, which is extracted from the cone snail and is a potent painkiller. The instructional activity encourages scholars to research...
Curated OER
Digital Picture Water Source Hunt
Learners use a technological format to illustrate their understanding of the importance of water to life. In this water lesson, students read a picture a book and discuss the need for water. Learners create a class chart about uses...
Curated OER
Life in a Drop of Water
Students examine the structure, function, and characteristics of microscopic organisms that inhabit freshwater through collection of water samples and observation through microscopes.