Brief Description

This is a collaborative project where students will collect data on the amount of water they use at home. We will do some experiments to give students some background knowledge, and then analyze and compare our data on how much water other students used in different parts of the world. This lesson incorporates the technology use of word processing, spreadsheets, scanning and the use of a digital camera This lesson can be taught over a 1-2 week time period and includes 2 hours of computer lab time.

Standards and Frameworks

Technology Standards

• 3T-F2. Use prescribed technology tools for data collection and basic analysis
• 4T-F2. Use technology tools for individual and collaborative communication activities to share products with audiences inside and outside the classroom
• 6T-F1. Use technology resources for problem solving, self-directed learning and extended learning activities

• 2M-F2. Construct read and interpret displays of data to make valid decisions, inferences and predictions
• W-F4. Gather, organize and accurately, clearly and sequentially report information gained from personal observations and experiences such as science experiments, field trips and classroom visitors
• W-F5. Locate, acknowledge and use several sources to write an informational report in their own words

Academic

• Students will collect their own water use data, make observations about their personal water use, and compare how they use water to how people in other parts of the world use water.
• Students write a report with a drawing detailing their results.

• After a whole class demonstration students will use a spreadsheet template to clearly display their data.
• Using a scanner students will scan their drawings to put into a Word document, insert, and save to put with their word document reports.

Students need to know the basic functions of a computer and:

• How to open a template
• How to use a spreadsheet
• How to scan a graphic into a word document
• How to save their work on a floppy disk
• How to use a digital camera

• 1 gallon container to hold water
• Stop watch
• Personal/household water chart template (get this at lesson 1b)
• Digital camera to record experiments
• Overhead of personal water template to record class totals
• Paper, crayons, and markers (for drawings)

SEI and learning disabilities:  These students may need to be paired up with a fluent English speaker. You may also want to put these students in a group and lead a cooperative small group for extra help while fluent English speakers are working independently. Allow them to illustrate their reports and write simple sentences describing what the students learned about water consumption. Have these students write their reports in pairs or as a cooperative team.

ADHD/ADD: Provide these students with smaller chunks and a longer time period to gather their data, analyze it, and then write their report. Ask these students to restate directions in their own words and break the process down by steps and have them work on the steps to complete one particular small chunk of their project. Have these students write their reports in pairs or as a cooperative team.

Gifted and Talented: Allow the students to search for ways that we can save or cut down on water consumption and create a PowerPoint presentation for the class.

Procedures

1. Go to the Down the Drain collaborative project and download the following lessons http://www.k12science.org/curriculum/drainproj/

 
Lesson One-Collect Water Usage Information and Make Observations
                            1a) How Much in a Gallon?
                            1b) Personal Water Use
                            1c) Household Water Use
                            1d) Class Water Use
Lesson Two- Develop a Hypothesis
Lesson Three-Make a Prediction
Lesson Four- Do the Experiment
Lesson Five-Communicate your Results
 

• Reserve the lab for 1 hour to do the jigsaw cooperative learning project.
• You may want to schedule some computer lab time for the spreadsheet lesson 1b/1c in one to one and a half weeks from now.  (You will be using a spreadsheet application like Excel or ClarisWorks to calculate the student’s data.)

Do your experiments
You will need the gallon container, a stopwatch, and a digital camera to record pictures of your experiments.

Go to the lab to explore the Down the Drain project (in a jigsaw format) and find out what the United States Geological Survey (USGS) says about how Americans use water

Jigsaw cooperative groups

a. Put students into cooperative groups of 4-5 students per group.  This team is called the home team.
b. Count each home team off, giving each home team member a number 1-5.
c. Ask all the one’s to go to a computer, then all the two’s go to another computer, and the three’s all go to a computer … until all the 1-5’s are in homogeneous groups at a computer.
d. Give each homogeneous group a research question to answer. The students can access this information from the link on the project overview page of Down the Drain or they can type in the following URL http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/qahome.html

• Where does the water come from?
• How much water does the average person use at home per day?
• How is water supplied to our homes?
• How many baths could I get from a rainstorm?
• Does a little leak in my house really waste water?

e. Students will need 10-15 minutes to answer the question and become an expert on their information writing down details to share with their home team.
f. After 15 minutes have students go back to their home teams and share what they learned.

• Send home the household water use chart for the students to gather their data. Have students chart their water and their household water use for one week.

How to download the spreadsheet

• Go to the link on the project overview page and click on Lesson 1c-household water use or you can find the page by typing in the URL: http://www.kscience.org/curriculum/drainproj/householdwateruse.html
• Click on the format you want to use Excel or ClarisWorks (these spreadsheet templates already have the formulas embedded in the template)
• Save on the desktop as householdwateruse

Now you are ready for the student to input the information into the spreadsheets on the next computer lab visit

• Go to the computer lab and have students go to their computers
• Have the students open the template by double clicking on the file
• Input information into the spreadsheet and print it out
• Analyze your data
• What observations can you make about how much water you and your family members use? Do your results surprise you?  How do your results compare with your classmates results

• Discuss your results.  How does your class compare to the U.S. National Daily Water Use that is an average of 80-100 gallons per day.

• What have you learned about water use so far? How much water do you, your family and your classmates use on a daily basis? What do you think about how this compares to people in other parts of the world?
• Brainstorm ideas (hypothesis’) with a group or partner
• A hypothesis is a theory about how something might happen. In order to prove this theory you investigate questions to help you support it.

• How do you think the average amount of water you use in one-day compares to what other Americans use?
• Do you think people in other parts of the world use more or less water than Americans? Why?  What factors contribute to water usage?

• People in drier climates use more water than people in rainier climates.
• Americans use more water than people in Europe.
• Water usage depends on where people live.
• People who live near oceans use less water than people who do not.

Example of this could be:

• People in drier climates use more water than people in rainier climates.
• People in Tucson Arizona use more water than people in Seattle Washington.
• People who live near oceans use less water than people who do not.
• People in California use less water than people in Utah.

• Have students look at the other class results and analyze the data to see if their hypothesis was correct. Have students do this in cooperative groups so you can rotate them in using your classroom computers to research their hypothesis and predictions.

 1.Writing a short report, using a word processing program, describing what you learned.  Illustrate your report and scan your illustrations inserting them into the word processing document.

2. Have students search for ways they can cut down on water consumption and create a PowerPoint presentation detailing their results.  Students may want to use the digital camera to take digital pictures of things they could do to save water and import them into the PowerPoint presentation.

This unit will be assessed by either of the following rubrics from Rubistar

Research report with scanned graphics rubric is at: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/view_rubric.php3?id=77791

Power Point Presentation rubric is at: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/view_rubricphp?id=781266