Schoolyard Exploration
 
The students will explore the current stormwater management practices on their school yard.  This activity will be used to engage and introduce them to the connection between human actions on land and water quality and quantity.  They students will use their homework assignment to begin an investigation at their own home.
Objectives
 
The student will identify actions made on school property that positively impact water quality and quantity. 
The student will identify actions made on school property that negatively impact water quality and quantity.  
 

 
Materials
 
Map of school yard
What the students need to find
Map Answer Key
Concept Map- Teacher version
Concept Map - Student
 
Procedure
 
 
Students will be given  a map of the school yard and a list of what they are to find. 
 
Students will  to work in groups to locate items on the scavenger hunt.
 
Develop a class concept map/web of the positive interventions being used to improve water quality and quantity.
 
Discuss 1st: Why take these actions?  Why do we even bother with all of the sediment controls?  It costs money, it takes time, the Bay is so dirty already and the oysters are pretty much gone!  Why bother? 
Students will begin to fill out the concept map of the negative impacts of erosion/using groundwater/sewage discharge and nutrients.  Do not introduce anything other than what they already know.
 
Students will view video clips and begin a concept map to show the actions
After each clip the students will add/identify to the concept map the actions that are the negative behaviors that impacts water qulaity and quantity.
Video Changes Chesapeake Bay http://www.umac.org/ocp/videos/changesInTheChesapeakeBay.html (stop at .55 seconds)
Scavenger Hunt Handout
Video Groundwater http://www.umac.org/ocp/videos/freshWater.html (stop at :43)
 
 
 

 

 
References
Video Changes Chesapeake Bay http://www.umac.org/ocp/videos/changesInTheChesapeakeBay.html (stop at .55 seconds)
Scavenger Hunt Handout
Video Groundwater http://www.umac.org/ocp/videos/freshWater.html (stop at :43)
 

Interrupt walkways.
Small planting beds and creeping groundcovers, such as thyme, can be incorporated into the edges of walkways and patios. These planted areas will help to slow storm water flow and create a more aesthetic space.

 Source: http://www.recycleworks.org/greenbuilding/sus_impervioussurfaces.html

 

A sediment pond is exactly what its name implied: a place to catch runoff and hold the water while the soil and debris in the water settles out to become sediment.   Most sediment ponds are required because discharge of water that contains too high a load of suspended solids violates water quality discharge standards.  

 

Source: http://technology.infomine.com/SedimentPonds/

 

 

 

 
 
State Standards
3.5.3- The student will investigate how natural and man-made changes in environmental conditions will affect individual organisms and the dynamics of populations.
6.3.2- The student will evaluate the interrelationship between humans and water quality and quantity. At least — fresh water supply point source/nonpoint source pollution waste water treatment thermal pollution Chesapeake Bay and its watershed eutrophication human health
Lesson Resources