Lesson 08 – Drinking Water Quality and Quantity Concerns On and Near the Farm
This is Lesson 8 (“Sources of Drinking Water”) from the FFA/USDA-NRCS “Drinking Water: Protecting the Source” curriculum on Drinking Water Quality and Quantity Concerns On and Near the Farm. Students explore groundwater dynamics and contaminant plumes, analyze their own county’s water-use data from USGS to create pie charts comparing groundwater and surface water use by user type, and research how rural land uses and groundwater depletion affect drinking water availability.
At a glance
- Learning objectives
-
- 8.1 Describe groundwater dynamics that impact water contamination and availability.
- 8.2 Determine how much local groundwater and surface water is used proportionally by user type.
- 8.3 Describe the potential for rural land uses to affect the availability of drinking water sources.
- Time required
- Instruction time for this lesson: 90 minutes (45 minutes more if you choose to do the "Predicting Groundwater Flow" activity at the end of Objective 8.1)
- Grade level
- 9-12
- Materials
-
- Worksheet SW.8.1.AS – Groundwater Flows; one copy for each student
- Slide SW.8.1.TM.A – Groundwater Contaminant Plume: Gasoline
- Slide SW.8.1.TM.B – Groundwater Contaminant Plume: Fertilizer
- Underground Storage Tanks, U.S. EPA (http://www.epa.gov/oust/index.htm)
- Computer
- LCD projector
- Screen
- Pencils
- Worksheet SW.8.2.AS – Local Source Water; one copy for each student
- Groundwater Data for the Nation, USGS (http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/gw)
- U.S. Groundwater Information, USGS (http://water.usgs.gov/ogw/)
- Access to computer with Internet connection and Excel software
- Pie chart blanks or materials to create a pie chart (protractor, ruler and paper)
- Colored pencils or markers
- USGS Fact Sheet, Ground-Water Depletion Across the Nation (http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-103-03/JBartolinoFS(2.13.04).pdf); one copy for each student
- Key Terms
- Aquaculture; Domestic; Flowpath; Industrial; Irrigation; Interaquifer leakage; Karst; Livestock; Mining; Plume; Public Supply; Solution opening; Subsidence; Thermoelectric; Unsaturated zone
- Lesson
- 8: Sources of Drinking Water
Downloads & Links
Aligned Standards
National Science Education Standards for Grades 9 – 12
- Content Standard FScience in Personal and Social Perspectives: Natural Resources – Human populations use resources in the environment in order to maintain and improve their existence. Natural resources have been and will continue to be used to maintain human populations.