CH. 2 OF EXPLORE THE SALISH SEA
STORMWATER
Stormwater runs down our gutters, sidewalks, streets, and parking lots, carrying with it all that is left on these impermeable surfaces into storm drains and into the sea. But it also runs through forests, meadows, and wetlands, each plant-rich ecosystem filtering and even purifying the water on its way. Urban planners are incorporating this understanding into stream restorations and green-spaces in cities throughout the Salish Sea watershed. In this unit, students will review the water cycle, learn the parts of a watershed, and the effects of erosion and pollution, then learn ways of purifying these waters before they enter our streams and estuaries to safeguard these ecosystems for marine life and us.
By downloading this curriculum, I agree to complete the educator surveys and pre- and post-assessments with my students.
STORMWATER UNIT PLAN
Find a unit plan here, including Learning Targets, Success Criteria, Next Generation Science Standards addressed, and an overview of the resource-rich lessons, activities, games, labs, and guided explorations that will help students get at the essential question they develop together as a class.
STUDENT JOURNAL
This is your students’ place to wonder, record observations, take notes, diagram, and plan and record scientific investigation or engineering processes. It will scaffold each step of learning, but give the locus of control to the students as they explore. It is also a place to celebrate hard work with well-deserved stamps on the back page.
HOW TO PRINT
In Microsoft Word, click on the Layout menu, scroll down to Pages options, and select Book fold in the drop down menu by Multiple pages. Print in landscape orientation on 8.5 x 14” paper with two staples along the center fold.
STORMWATER SLIDESHOW
Use these PowerPoint slides with video and resource links as an aid to help guide, but not dominate, your lessons. Feel free to modify content and add or remove slides to best fit your learning progression. Where there are place-based maps, videos, or project examples, replace with similar content, specific to your school’s region or relevant to your students’ lives and interests.
PRE-ASSESSMENT
Gauge pre-existing knowledge and interest with this brief quiz. When the unit is finished, don’t forget to take the post-assessment. Classroom teachers, use student achievement data gathered from these assessments for a TPEP Cycle of Inquiry.
WONDER
Give your students a visual or sensory experience that provides a chance to wonder at a watershed or a particular aspect of it. This may be a hands-on outdoor activity, an observational field trip, or an in-classroom presentation or video. Find some ideas and resources in the Experience Ideas link below or come up with your own.
ESSENTIAL QUESTION
After the experience of wonder in 2. above, it is time to give the Stormwater Student Journal to each student. Let them get acquainted with it then turn to Journal p. 3 and read Explore the Salish Sea chapter 2, Why the Salish Sea is Special. Here is a time to write thoughts, ideas, and questions inspired by their reading into their journals. After students have read and written, invite an open discussion with the class. Develop an essential question around what is most important in this chapter. Your essential question should relate to how the watershed affects the health of sea life.
Print journals in Booklet layout on 8.5 x 14” paper
BACKGROUND RESEARCH
Hey students! Looking for background information to help you form a testable question and investigate the stormwater in your own watershed? Click the button below to find stormwater and water quality references to fuel the fire of your Nature Detective mission. Too much to read? Divide an article between Explore Team members and do a Team Read!
Remember to cite your sources (write a bibliographic reference) as you go, with authors’ names, year, title, and publication or website for each. Give credit where credit is due!
DEVELOP A TESTABLE QUESTION
This is when your students take that larger essential question and distill it down into specific, testable questions that can be measured and answered through engineering, experimentation, or surveying.
PUT SCIENCE TO WORK
Identify variables, design a procedure, carry out an investigation, analyze data, and see where active discovery leads. To answers? Solutions? More questions to test? Or maybe even back to the drawing board to start all over again. The scientific process is never linear and never ends, but is always an adventure! Read through this UC Berkely web-link for teaching Science, then print the scientific process chart for students or to post in your classroom. Find the resources to guide your students’ own scientific process in the Slideshow and Student Journal.
SeaDoc Educator Workshop participants sampling inlet to Metro Parks Tacoma stormwater filtration system to test water quality before and after filtration. Photo by Jess Newley.
PLAN and TELL YOUR STORY
This is a crucial part of the scientific process. It is the part where the results of all your hard work can make a difference. This may be a difference in the choices a few citizens make each day to help the sea or a new bill on the Senate floor that changes the way our whole state helps the whales. Click on the button below to return to the Real Process of Science website’s online tool for students to build the story of their scientific process.
Students with computers can make a storyboard online via The Real Process of Science’s How Science Works Web Interactive with export to PowerPoint
POST-ASSESSMENT
At the end of the unit, administer this post-assessment and record the results, then calculate the difference between the pre- and post-assessment scores to measure student growth for the individual and the whole class.