This is a unit for K-2 students on fish habitats. The last day is a field trip to a local lake.
In the Flow Rate Experiment, students perform hands-on experiments with a common faucet, as well as work with the Engineering Our Water Living Lab to gain a better understanding of flow rate and how it pertains to engineering and applied science. Students calculate the flow rate of a faucet for three different levels (quarter blast, half blast, and full blast). Building on these calculations, students hypothesize about the flow rate in a nearby river, and then use the Engineering Our Water Living Lab to check their hypothesis. For this lesson to be effective, your students need to have a visual feel for the flow in a nearby river.
This BioBulletin Web site reports on an international scientific expedition in Gabon to study freshwater biodiversity. The site includes text, videos, photographs, and interviews with key scientists. The Introduction presents the idea that freshwater ecosystems hold great diversity and are at great risk. About the Expedition explains why Gabon's rain forests and freshwater ecosystems were selected for studyBiologists in Action is an annotated photo album of the expedition. Why Gabon? takes an in-depth look at this country on the west coast of Africa, including its people and history as well as its habitats and species. About Dr. Stiassny profiles this expedition scientist, who serves as the museum's Chair of the Department of Ichthyology.
This curriculum helps young people learn about riparian areas--those "GREEN Zones" found along the edges of rivers, streams, and lakes. Teachers and youth group leaders will find a variety of resources in the Leader Guide, including background information, a unit-by-unit guide, and safety tips, as well as a curriculum concept map and correlations to national education standards.
This video resource from Jean-Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures explores the unique adaptations developed by the pink river dolphin in order to survive in the freshwater rivers of the Amazon.
Sedimentation is the build-up of runoff from agricultural, urban, and industrial waste containing sewage, fertilizers, metals and other chemicals.
This BioBulletin Web site takes an in-depth look at the power of dams to sustain and destroy life near rivers, and the process and results of setting dammed rivers free. The site includes text, videos, photographs, and interviews with key scientists.
This service allows users to locate, use, and share environmental information about watersheds where they live. Individual watersheds can be searched by map, place name, or Zip code. "Adopt your watershed" encourages individuals to become involved in stewardship and conservation of watersheds where they live. An environmental website database contains hundreds of URLs and can be searched by state, full text, information type, or keyword.
Introduction to momentum and scalar transport in environmental flows, with emphasis given to river and lake systems. Derivation and solutions to the differential form of mass conservation equations. Topics include: molecular and turbulent diffusion, boundary layers, dissolution, phase partitioning, bed-water exchange, air-water exchange, settling and coagulation, buoyancy-driven flows, and stratification in lakes.
" This class serves as an introduction to mass transport in environmental flows, with emphasis given to river and lake systems. The class will cover the derivation and solutions to the differential form of mass conservation equations. Class topics to be covered will include: molecular and turbulent diffusion, boundary layers, dissolution, bed-water exchange, air-water exchange and particle transport."
This video from Kentucky's Last Great Places shows how the Green River has remained unusually clean and why it is home to several endangered aquatic species.
This gallery of online resources is from the Museum's Seminars on Science, a series of distance-learning courses designed to help educators meet the new national science standards. This gallery, part of the Diversity of Fishes seminar, features two videos that both have printable PDF transcripts:About Water looks at how the water that covers two-thirds of our planet is distributed in oceans, polar caps, aquifers, rivers, and lakes. Planet Water discusses how freshwater fish which makes up one-quarter of all vertebrate biodiversity on Earth live in less than 1/100th of a percent of the planet's water.
The water cycle is more than a diagram it has significant impacts on our daily lives, local and global ecosystems and even economic systems. The resources in this collection can help teachers take students beyond just a minimal knowledge of a simple diagram of the cycle. This collection provides real-time and historic data sources that track and measure the water in different portions of the water cycle; satellite images shows water vapor in the atmosphere, interactive maps can be searched to show precipitation, snow depths, river flows and evaporation rates. Included are also lessons, games and hands on activities that model the complexity of the cycle. The Background resources allow students and teachers to investigate the water cycle holistically and in its individual parts. These resources allow teachers to implement student-directed and place-based projects about the water cycle.
Emphasis on mathematical models for predicting distribution and fate of effluents discharged into lakes, reservoirs, rivers, estuaries, and oceans. Focuses on formulation and structure of models as well as analytical and simple numerical solution techniques. Role of element cycles, such as oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus, as water quality indicators. Offshore outfalls and diffusion. Salinity intrusion in estuaries. Thermal stratification, eutrophication, and sedimentation processes in lakes and reservoirs.
