The Water Sourcebooks: K-12

Book excerpt

By: United States Environmental Protection Agency

Date: 2000

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Water Sourcebooks: K-12. Washington, DC: 2000.

About the Organization: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), established in 1970, is generally responsible for protecting the U.S. environment and preserving its integrity for future generations. Its specific aims include controlling and reducing water and air pollution, noise pollution, and pollution by pesticides, radiation, and various toxic substances. The EPA Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, within the Office of Water, is generally responsible for working with many environmental partners in order to protect the public health by ensuring a safe supply of drinking water and by protecting groundwater.

INTRODUCTION

The Water Sourcebook Series is a project of the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water (OGWDW). Developed in 2000, the Water Sourcebook Series is the result of a partnership among the EPA Region Four (based in Atlanta, Georgia), the Alabama Department of Environmental Regulation, and Legacy, Inc.

Water Sourcebooks: K-12 is an environmental education program that contains over three hundred activities for schoolchildren from kindergarten to twelfth grade—with the reoccurring environmental message, "Use What You Need and Don't Pollute." The activities are divided into four major groups: kindergarten to second grade (K-2), third grade to fifth grade (3-5), sixth grade to eighth grade (6-8), and ninth grade to twelfth grade (9-12). Each group is divided into five chapters: Introduction to Water, Drinking Water and Wastewater Treatment, Surface Water Resources, Ground Water Resources, and Wetlands and Coastal Waters.

The Water Sourcebook program describes the water management cycle and its effect on all parts of the environment. The curriculum involves science and mathematics, along with subject areas in the social studies, language arts, reading, and other educational areas. The activities involved with the program vary from fact sheets, reference materials, hands-on investigations, and a glossary of terms. Each activity is organized by objectives, materials needed, background information, advance preparation, procedures, and resources.

An example of one of the activities of the Water Sourcebook Series is called Thirstin's Water Cycle Adventure, which visually describes the cycle of water: falling moisture (in such forms as rain and snow) onto the surface of the Earth (while Thirstin looks on from underneath his umbrella), its submergence into groundwater within bedrock, its eventual use in providing drinking water from wells and as part of water bodies (such as lakes and rivers), and its evaporation due to the sun back into the sky where it returns to clouds to repeat its perpetual cycle.

PRIMARY SOURCE

WATER SOURCEBOOKS: K-12

INTRODUCTION The value of clean, safe water for individuals, communities, businesses, and industries can't be measured. Every living thing depends on water. The economy requires it. Water issues should be everyone's concern, but most people take water quality and availability for granted. After all, clean, safe water is available to most Americans every time they turn on the tap. Water issues do not become a concern until there is a crisis such as a drought or wastewater treatment plant failure. Educating citizens who must make critical water resource decisions in the midst of a crisis rarely results in positive change. Developing awareness, knowledge, and skills for sound water use decisions is very important to young people, for they will soon be making water resource management decisions. Properly equipping them to do so is essential to protect water resources.

WATER SOURCEBOOK PROGRAM The Water Sourcebook educational program is directed specifically toward the in-school population. The program consists of supplemental activity guides targeting kindergarten through high school. Water Sourcebooks are available for primary (K-2), elementary (3-5), middle (6-8), and secondary (9-12) levels. Materials developed in the program are compatible with existing curriculum standards established by State Boards of Education throughout the United States as well as national standards in science, social studies and geography. Concepts included in these standards are taught by using water quality information as the content.

The Water Sourcebooks include five chapters—Introduction, Drinking Water and Wastewater Treatment, Groundwater, Surface Water, and Wetlands.

DEVELOPMENT The Water Sourcebooks are developed in three stages. First, classroom teachers are selected to write the activities with assistance of education specialists. Teams of teachers are given the task of developing and writing the activities for each of the five instructional chapters. The second step involves testing activities in the classroom and technical reviews by water experts. From the evaluations provided by the testing teachers and technical reviewers, revisions are made. Finally, editing, and illustrations are complete and the Water Sourcebook is published.

ACTIVITY DESIGN All of the activities include "hands-on" components and are designed to blend with existing curricula in the areas of general sciences, language arts, math, social studies, art, and in some cases, reading or other areas. Each activity details (1) objectives, (2) subjects(s), (3) time, (4) materials, (5) background information, (6) advance preparation, (7) procedure (including activity, follow-up, and extension), and (8) resources. Fact sheets and a glossary section are included at the end of the guide to help equip teachers to deal with concepts and words used in the text which may be unfamiliar.

SIGNIFICANCE

Environmental education—as provided by the EPA Water Sourcebooks—at the grade-school through high-school levels increases student awareness and knowledge of environmental issues and challenges. As a result, children and young adults are provided various sources to better understand how their individual actions affect the environment and how large groups, such as corporations and countries, also affect the environment. As students develop critical skills in problem solving and decision making, as provided by the numerous sources of the EPA, they will be able to better judge and decide various sides of issues based on facts and common sense—often without advocating a particular viewpoint or taking a specific course of action.

With the use of the Water Sourcebook Series, members of the Office of Environmental Education (within the EPA) can better coordinate the quality and quantity of environmental education in the formal educational system throughout the United States. In fact, the Office of Environmental Education, because of its placement within the EPA, has access to a wide variety of programs that help to inform and educate students throughout the United States.

On the Internet site of the Office of Environmental Education, students are able to access such information as basic facts, nearby EPA environmental education offices ("Where You Live"), various activities ("You Can Do"), grant and fellowship programs, and President's environmental youth awards, along with information on educator training, advisory groups, partnerships, resources, a calendar of events, and glossary terms. Among the student projects created by the EPA—also available on the Internet—is the Environmental Kids Club, the EPA Student Center, and the High School Environmental Center.

Through such EPA programs as the Water Sourcebook Series, students from kindergarten to high school gain a better understanding about how their individual actions will affect the environment. Such understanding is very significant for maintaining and improving environments from the local community level to the global environment of the Earth.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Basile, Carole, Cameron White, and Stacey Robinson. Awareness to Citizenship: Environmental Literacy for the Elementary Child. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000.

Educating for a Culture of Social and Ecological Peace, edited by Anita L. Wenden. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2004.

Environmental Education: A Resource Handbook, edited by Joe E. Heimlich. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, 2002.

Suzuki, David T. Eco-fun: Great Projects, Experiments, and Games for a Greener Earth. Vancouver and New York: Greystone Books, 2001.

Teaching Green: The Middle Years, Hands-on Learning in Grades 6-8, edited by Tim Grant and Gail Littlejohn. Gabriola, BC: New Society Publishers, 2004.

Web sites

Environmental Protection Agency. "Environmental Kids Club." 〈http://www.epa.gov/kids〉 (accessed November 26, 2005).

Environmental Protection Agency. "EPA Student Center." 〈http://www.epa.gov/students〉 (accessed November 26, 2005).

Environmental Protection Agency. "Welcome to the Water Sourcebooks." 〈http://www.epa.gov/safewater/kids/wsb〉 (accessed November 26, 2005).