Rivers & Lakes

Theme: Water Quality and Human Impact Age: Grade 3-6 Time: 3 hours including time for lunch

Funding The Abington Foundation has funded this program for the STEAM Network to include all third grade classes in the Network. This grant covers professional development, pre and post visit activities, Lakes & Rivers program at the aquarium, transportation, and a family event with the Greater Cleveland Aquarium. The Greater Cleveland Aquarium Splash Fund is the recipient and fiscal agent for this grant from The Abington Foundation. The final report is due November 2015.

Professional Development A one and a half hour teacher workshop is in place for this program. It was first presented to 4 teachers at the Blue2 Institute on July 30 by Aquarium staff. We are prepared to present it again this fall to prepare teachers for this experience. Teachers were presented with lesson plans, pre and posttests, and a water quality test kits to prepare their students to the Lakes and Rivers program.

Lakes & Rivers program Overview Explore the rich history of Ohio’s waterways while journeying through Lake Erie, and the Cuyahoga River. This program will explore the deep interconnection that Ohio has with its freshwater systems through time. Students will use chemical tests to determine the quality of Cuyahoga River water and learn about Ohio’s native fish, amphibians, reptiles, through hands-on activities that teach students the importance of protecting our local waters.

Standards Ohio’s Learning Standards Content Statements in science, social studies and math covered in Lakes and River s are listed below.

Program Outline for Lakes & Rivers

Introduction and Tests: Welcome students to the Greater Cleveland Aquarium. Introduce staff. Head outside to the Cuyahoga River. Hypothesis

 Have students fill out the hypothesis sheet by answering the questions: o How do you know if a river is healthy or not? o Based upon your previous knowledge, how healthy do you expect the Cuyahoga River to be? Why? o What ranking would you give to the Cuyahoga River? 4, 3, 2, 1

History

 Explain that we are going to learn more about the history of the Cuyahoga River to help us put everything into context. The river’s history may give us clues about the water quality today.  Show map of Cuyahoga River Watershed o Cuyahoga means crooked river o Show flow of river from headwaters to Lake Erie  Show historical pictures of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland o Hand out pictures to students and have them arrange the pictures in chronological order o Talk through the actual timeline of Ohio’s history . Natural Photo- may be what Moses Cleveland saw when he first came to the area. Many trees, no buildings, little pollution. First attracted fur trappers. . Ohio & Erie Canal- 1825-1913- brought industry to Ohio (show canal map) . Industrial Flats- many buildings, steel and oil industry, pollution into the river . Fires- Cuyahoga burned several times due to oil and gas pollution in the water. Accounts stated river “oozed” rather than flowed. . Dirty River- took a while for people to take action. 1969 fire sparked global attention. Time magazine article with Kennedys. Clean water act of 1974 started environmental movement. . River Today- improving. Less pollution entering river. Native fish returning to upper Cuyahoga. Hopefully increased awareness will lead to increased improvement. o Does knowing the history change your hypothesis?

 Discussion Questions: o Has the river always looked the same? o What events or processes have changed the river? o Does it matter if changes happen quickly or slowly? o How do we know if the water is healthy?

Observations

 Qualitative river assessment as a group. (See Beautiful Ohio River Observations) o Does knowing this change your hypothesis?

Water Quality Tests

 Quantitative Water quality testing stations. o Turbidity o Dissolved Oxygen o Phosphate o pH o Nitrate o Temperature  Do an overview of the tests explaining why each test is important. For example, turbidity measures the cloudiness/clarity of the water. High turbidity can alter water temperature and affect dissolved oxygen levels.  Distribute gloves and goggles.  Have students work in small groups of no more than 5 to test the water samples.  Each group works on a different test then comes back with the results.  Have students follow the instructions and record the data on data sheet.  Calculate an average number from the data you collected and correlate this average to a water quality rating system to assign a good, fair or poor daily water quality rating.

Share Results  Have student groups share back the results to the others.  Find the average water quality ranking to understand overall water quality for the day.  Compare the river now to how it was in the early 1900s.  If we continually monitored the river, could these results change?  Make a prediction of what the river may look like in 50 years.

Conclusion  Revisit the hypothesis/conclusion sheet. Answer Questions o How do we know if the water is healthy? o What ranking did the river earn today?  The Enviroscape is demonstrated to show how land pollution for land affects Ohio’s waterways.

Back at school  Add your students’ data to the online data sheets in GoogleDocs and compare to other CMSD classes’ data.  Discuss what may have caused changes in water quality from day to day  Data entry page: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1kMyujRbMebxrTc94Z3FvorPKucXjclaVtn4u2o_ODn4/ viewform?usp=send_form  Data view page: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1D251KTAYZruDq8- zhU7NiLPmXDQw9HJxiU7cshQs4j4/edit?usp=sharin