Brief Description

Students study Land Forms in the 5th grade curriculum.  Part of this study is not only rainfall and how it affects the land, but also how the land affects the storage of the water.  This study will bring the water usage of Pima County into the classroom using real time data from wells close to the homes of the students.

Standards and Frameworks

Technology Standards

• 3T-E2. Use a variety of technology tools for data collection and analysis

• 1SC-E3. Organize and present data gathered from their own experiences, using appropriate mathematical analyses and graphical representations
• 6SC-F7. Measure and record changes in weather conditions

Academic

• Students will use the web site http://waterdata.usgs.gov/az/nwis/uv to gather real time data of water usage within Pima County on a daily basis with 100% accuracy.

• Students will use the data gathered from http://waterdata.usgs.gov/az/nwis/uv to generate a spreadsheet of water usage with 100% accuracy.

• Students should have basic Internet skills.  These skills include finding a given URL and being able to use active links within that site.  Students should also be familiar with Excel/spreadsheet usage, as well as basic keyboarding skills.

Computers with Internet access
Worksheet for recording data
Excel software program
Excel Spreadsheet Template
Questions for student to answer from data results

Accommodations for Special Needs

Gifted students – This lesson allows students to explore a variety of water recording activities in depth if they so choose.  They may elect to research various other sources of water recordings of their choice along with the given assignment.  If they finish early, students also have the option of helping another student with answering questions, helping with word processing skills, or the technology process.

SEI (Sheltered English Immersion) students – students may be paired up with another student to help them move around the website.  Students will be given the opportunity to record their own water information and associated water questions, even if given help by another student.

ADD/ADHD students – Break down the task.  Have students complete a portion of the assignment.  Students can use headphones to help block out distractions.  Instead of typing directly in a word processing document, students may want to tell it into a recorder first, then listen and write it down.

Special Education students – Break down the task.  Work with a buddy and try to complete the assignment together.  When writing the description, have the student talk through their ideas with a buddy, or have them record it in a tape recorder and then write it down.

Procedures

Day 1-6:

• Students will be placed with a partner for this assignment.
• Students will go to http://waterdata.usgs.gov/az/nwis/uv and view water usage data from all recording sites within Pima County.
• Students will choose 6 reporting stations for the data recording.
• One partner will read the water gauge depth data while the other partner records this data on the worksheet given out by the instructor.
• Students will take recorded data and together enter it on the spreadsheet template.

• Students will once again pair up and analyze the data they have collected.  They will then answer the questions on the data analysis sheet given to them by the teacher.
• Each student will separately write their own conclusions to the water study.

Each student will submit a spreadsheet containing water usage data gathered from days 1-6.  Each spreadsheet will contain neatly printed data collected by the student on a daily basis from each of the six reporting stations chosen by the student.  Each reporting day must be clearly labeled with the date, location, and amount of water.

Students will generate a bar graph using the chart wizard function in Excel.  Each graph will show the total amount of water, the average amount of water, the median amount of water, and the mode amount of water for each data gathering location,

Each student will submit their own conclusions to the water study using the data analysis sheet provided by the teacher.  These questions must be answered in complete sentences, with examples from the collected date cited in the answer.