Internalizing “the Worth of Water”: Human Hydration and Water Conservation

If you drive over 800 miles across Texas (west to east) along Interstates 10 and 20 and 30, you can’t help but notice the differences between ecoregions as you move from the Chihuahuan Desert of El Paso to the Piney Woods of Texarkana. Having experienced that continuum of increasing annual precipitation (and being a native Texan), I’d almost bet my brother’s pickup truck that you’d find an almost direct and inverse correlation of location to attitude toward water conservation. I don’t even want to think about the real numbers for actual action at present.

As Benjamin Franklin said way back in 1746, “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water” (Poor Richard's Almanac). Depending on where and how your students live, they may not appreciate the critical importance of fresh drinking water - and I mean critical as in life-support. Most of the water on our planet is contained in two areas that most people can’t readily access or use. And on top of that, all of the water that is on this planet is the same water that we’ve always had! The Water, Water Everywhere! activity shows how very limited the water that we have to use is relative to the total supply.


Used as a diagnostic assessment, this hands-on exploration adds an urgent perspective to protecting and conserving our precious water – and all natural – resources. And since March 11-17 is National Groundwater Awareness Week this year, the EPA’s Learn the Issues page on Water is a terrific place to start all sorts of investigations that ought to have a great deal of personal relevance to your students! With activities for all ages, students can find out how water is stored in an aquifer, how groundwater can become contaminated, and how this contamination may end up in their drinking water!

HippoCampus Connections: You can also incorporate these resources from the HippoCampus site in a variety of ways! The Water Cycle exploration in NOAA: Water Cycle graphically shows where water accumulates in the water cycle – and how it moves through the cycle. The Global Impact video, also in NOAA: Water Cycle explains how water pollution threatens our relatively scarce fresh water supply. Similarly, Water Resources illustrates what happens to fresh water within a watershed. The Water Distillation video shows how pond water, sea water, and tap water can be purified. And the Wastewater Treatment video describes how we are reclaiming reusable water resources.

Instructor Notes: Click here to see how Dr. Fred Fifer helped Texas science teachers learn how to integrate the Water, Water Everywhere! activity into their classroom teaching. He goes on to show how this experiential training activity can lead to discussions on how this experience can help all understand the term 'variable' and the importance of water conservation.

Researchers estimate that half of the world's population is chronically dehydrated. And in America, that level is thought to be even higher at 75 percent of the population. According to WebMD, “Dehydration can occur in anyone of any age, but it is most dangerous for babies, small children, and older adults.” Check out the Hydration Calculator to figure out how much water your body requires to function properly. To see how much your students have internalized, challenge them to create an ‘infographic’ of the benefits of hydration – along with the percentage of water in their own bodies! Here’s an example to help sustain your flow of creativity…

A Sustainable Frontier Ethic: Reclaiming Non-Renewable Energy Sites

This month’s blog topic, Land & Cleanup, is far more personally relevant than I expected! Beautiful spring-like weather coerced me to do my annual yard cleanup much earlier than usual. Even though I’ve xeriscaped significantly, non-native invasive vines and saplings commandeer a good bit of physical energy each season.

Speaking of energy, the previous post focused on one kind of renewable energy: solar. The Great Buffalo Shortage activity helps students learn how to weigh the trade-offs of mining operations, a common way of extracting non-renewable energy sources. Like the buffalo, that almost became extinct, without proper management, we may lose the environment itself. Click on the image below or right here to review a truly hands-on model that offers a fun formative assessment!


Many students tend to believe that mining always produces a profit. They may not know about the regulations governing mining and requirements for land management or how to weigh the yield. As detailed on the EPA’s abandoned mine lands site, AMLs present serious threats to human health and the environment… not to mention often extreme scarring of the land. I think it’s well worth your time to scroll way down NASA’s remote sensing tutorial page to see satellite images of long term changes in resource use, such as strip mining and the progress of land reclamation.

Instructor Notes: It’s sadly easy to relate real-world stories of energy-related environmental destruction back to almost every activity I’ve shared to date! Think about the implications of mining operations in terms of systems (Balancing Acts), adaptation (Moth Mothers), food webs (Oops, I Broke It), and population (No More Room), for starters. That’s why I was so happy to see a new Fact Sheet added to the EPA resource site just this past December. Directly related to the Energy Watchers activity, Shining Light on a Bright Opportunity: Developing Solar Energy on Former Mine Lands provides a great summary of solar energy – and how abandoned mining areas can serve as ‘renewed’ sites for renewable energy production.

HippoCampus Connections: Several excellent resources on HippoCampus support an understanding of why the revitalization and reuse of damaged land – and protection of land in general – is important to each of us. The Mining for Borax video shows a real-world success story of managing this balance. Unsustainable Frontier Ethic simulation shows why it’s critical we find and maintain a balance by explaining desert encroachment. Tree Harvesting explains how we can mechanically remove a renewable resource in a sustainable way. The Fight to Preserve the Bollana Wetlands presents a case study of how citizens took action to save a local environment from over-development. Other related items of possible interest include: Mine Restoration and Area Strip Mining.

FYI: I’ve set up playlists on myHippo page at the new HippoCampus site to match all of these blog activities for your convenience.

Even though your students may not have direct exposure to mining operations, other than the many historic towns that come to mind initially (Leadville, CO for example), there are many active operations globally. See what’s closest to home on the USGS Mine and Mineral Processing Plant Locations map – and then see if your students agree with the practices and policies in place there today!

Taking Ownership of Environmental Protection

A big part of this season’s holiday joy, for many, centers on family anecdotes from years past that are remembered as we write the stories for future generations to recall. For some reason this year I thought about how my dad – who coached my community sports teams – told us how to win. He said there were only two things that mattered: scoring more points than the other team and not letting them score more points than we did! Yes, it’s just that simple.

As many of us ponder likely familiar resolutions for 2012, I decided to build on my dad’s advice to plan my personal goals this year. I aim to do more things that are ‘good’ for myself and fewer things that are ‘bad’ for myself. The same trade-off works for this month’s blog post topic. Paraphrased in terms of sustainability, we simply need to use more alternative energy and not use as much from sources that negatively impact our economy, safety, and environment.

Unfortunately, it’s not such a simple task to actually implement either challenge. Need some energy? Just flip a switch and the lights come on, or the computer boots up, or the washing machine starts to run. Many students think that electricity comes from the wall; they do not consider what had to happen for that electricity to be produced and to get to that wall socket. Further, they have no idea about the amount of energy they are using. The summative Energy Watchers activity is all about making the abstract more concrete – and putting all of that into a personally-relevant context.



Yes, this activity was inspired by the Weight Watchers program success! From their homepage, “Weight Watchers works because it’s not a diet. You’ll learn how to eat right and live healthy.” Fortunately, quantifying energy consumption and production along with comprehensive cost-benefit analysis for each option is becoming a lot easier and far more interesting thanks to new technologies that have recently made it to market. Adding an increased awareness of the causes and effects of our pre-information revolution lifestyles to that growing knowledge base is catalyzing exciting collaborations that reach across the political and peculiar boundaries for positive change.

Instructor Notes: Many new homes are equipped with ‘smart meters’ that send electricity consumption data to the utility. Smart meters can also record the energy fed back into the distribution network from co-generation sources, such as wind turbines and solar panels. An internet search will also return ‘Home Energy Management Software’ apps to gain valuable insight into energy use. To gain a broader perspective, take a look at Chevron’s Energyville. While it’s called a game, it is a powerful simulation tool for controlling the energy mix of a virtual city. It can be played individually or as teams. You might set up class challenges! Even if you don’t use the gaming component, a wealth of information on energy sources and demands is nicely presented on the well-designed site.

Hoping to ‘score more points than the other team’, I am thrilled to be a part of the first community solar project in Colorado Springs. This innovative plan offers an affordable way for me to utilize solar energy – thanks to many people who worked together to figure it out. The city council unanimously approved the idea of a solar garden in September 2011. SunShare negotiated a working relationship with the local utility company to make it all possible. I leased my option in October to leverage attractive government incentives. The governor attended a groundbreaking ceremony when the first panels were installed in November. And I should see a credit for the energy piped into the local grid on my January 2012 electric bill! Perhaps someday soon I’ll need to map my CO to/from TX route on the Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center site to make sure I can refuel my next vehicle as needed!

We all need to take ownership of environmental protection in whatever ways we can. Encourage your students to seek out other ways to reduce their environmental footprints today – at home, at school, in the garden, and in the community! The EPA’s Green Living page includes many great ideas and current information and a link to their Sustainability site. How will you measure your students’ success this year? It all adds up to a win-win for a healthier and happier future.

Seeing is believing… we are cramming to capacity.

Once again the seasons appear to have changed overnight! A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving Day, I was in Colorado where we’d already had 3 snows (8-9 inch accumulations each) and bitterly freezing temperatures. Just 12 hours later, when I arrived home in north central Texas, it was 80 degrees outside and spring green had replaced the chaff of an historically hot summer. According to the LCRA, “The 12 months from October 2010 through September 2011 were the driest for that 12-month period in Texas since 1895, when the state began keeping rainfall records.” My hometown is now enforcing Stage 3 Water Conservation Measures as the winter forecast does not hold much promise for relief. But the temperature has dropped and the leaves have changed to signal Fall, finally!

On a grander scale, climate changes naturally over a long period of time. This gradual progression usually allows plants and animals to balance the carrying capacity of their environment. Whether or not you ‘believe’ in global warming, the impact of human activity is causing rapid changes in our shared environment. Adults have actually seen the changes manifest: we know that the current local weather patterns are different from what seemed relatively predictable when we were kids; we see the impact of that on flora and fauna, not to mention the domino effects of continued habitat destruction. Today’s students, however, often have difficulty connecting our need for the same resources as other organisms with the amount of life the planet can support. Many times they also fail to associate changes in climate with the earth’s ability to sustain life. That’s why the No More Room activity is designed to provide a tangible representation of carrying capacity from the bottom of a food web up!




Instructor Notes: This activity can be used as a summative assessment to see if students really grasp the fact that climate change is a problem that is affecting people and the environment – and that they can take action to make a difference right now. There’s a lot of great information in A Student’s Guide to Global Climate Change on the EPA website, which is available in the Learn the Issues section on Climate Change. In addition to a virtual field trip around the world to explore the effects of climate change, students can calculate their impact on the environment and learn about specific ways to help solve this global challenge. Please share your ideas for incorporating the interactive Global Warming Effects Map too!

Somewhat related to this topic, I am a visual learner, always have been and hopefully always will be. I suppose that’s part of the reason I so love to ‘watch’ the seasons change. Regardless of my preference, experts say that over 80 percent of what a child learns in school is presented visually. And sadly, up to 25 percent of schoolchildren may have vision problems that can affect their ability to learn. The good news is that many of those roadblocks can be reduced if not eliminated with rehabilitation or therapy! The COVD website is a great starting point for finding out more about vision development and vision therapy – and vision and learning. Please review their Symptoms Checklist of common signs and symptoms of conditions to look for that may indicate a vision problem. They can occur at any age and typical eye exams and school screenings do not check for these critical functions, unfortunately.

As we continue to leverage new tools and technologies to track global climate change and to assess neuro-sensory diagnostics, teachers have exciting opportunities to incorporate new techniques and strategies for more meaningful learning for an increasingly diverse audience. For example, Environmental Science is a wonderful topic for exploring ways to use infographics as creative assessments. As explained on Wikipedia, “information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics present complex information quickly and clearly”. When checking the forecast for my recent drive from CO to TX, I was naturally and immediately drawn to the GraphiCast (graphical short term forecast) produced by the National Weather Service.

In Teaching with Infographics, the New York Times acknowledges that it’s becoming increasingly important for students to be able to read and interpret visual representations of information. I started my explorations with 10 Awesome Free Tools to Make Infographics and The Anatomy of an Infographic: 5 Steps to Create a Powerful Visual. What changes in teaching and learning are you noticing? What ideas could you develop to inspire your students to share facts and figures about their place in the changing environment?

Food webs offer serious food for thought!

I am just starting to recover from my summer ‘vacation’… Having revised my Educational Technology course, I had to realign elements to the various standards: the TEKS, the NETS, the PPR, and so on… I’d need a 3D Microsoft Surface table to show you how each ties into the actual course – and over to the others – really. Because my course is cumulative across 15 weeks, the spiral design creates a fantastic interweaving of connections. I’d bet your practice produces a similarly intricate mesh when you take a step back from the general lessons and add in all of the IEPs. Representing such complexity is a challenge. My dream is to realize an interactive volvox model to literally connect the dots within and around the parts that make up the whole of education.

On a more practical note, the Oops, I Broke It activity provides a memorable way for students to dramatize a food chain. Hopefully you’ll have time to extend that simple linear model into a food web. Making the connection to energy, they sometimes forget that all food chains and webs begin with the sun. It’s also important that they realize how inter-dependent both chains and webs are when considered within an environmental context. As a formative assessment, I’ve found this to be a fun way to introduce the topic of food webs or to check for a thorough understanding of the importance of protecting endangered species.Click here to download the ‘analog’ activity detail.


Please refer to the EPA’s website to learn more about the issue of Pesticides, Chemicals, and Toxics and incorporate that issue into your discussion of food webs. Their Design for the Environment Safer Product Labeling Program is one tool for empowering us all to help protect human health and the environment.

HippoCampus Connections: Depending on your curriculum needs, there are several wonderful resources to support this activity in the HippoCampus collection. Hydrothermal Vent Food Web in NOAA: Chemosynthesis and Vent Life provides a real-life simulation of a unique underwater food web. In NOAA: Ocean Pollution, the Biomagnification animation shows how toxins move into and through a food chain.

Instructor Notes: Depending on your students, I was also pleased to find several interesting ‘games’ on the web that might offer additional assessments or appropriate remediation. Exercise your creativity to integrate this topic with geography and social studies! In the food chain game you drag the parts of the generic progressive food chains (from simple to full) to their correct places; when the chain is complete it ‘comes to life’! There are locale specific activities for meadow, arctic and pond chains, Canadian northern or forest food chains, and endangered animals in the Mexican ecosystem and/or you can learn about other animals by level then see complex webs for Australian or African Grasslands and Antarctic or Marine food webs. While the Oops, I Broke It activity targets a particular environmental science concept, you’re certainly not limited to addressing a single standard with such real-world examples!

An obvious benefit of new technologies is the ability to individualize teaching to accommodate different learning styles and special needs cases. With a slightly different tack, I try to design content that fosters individualized learning for everyone. (Yes, I am a true constructivist.) In fact, for my doctoral work I helped my graduate students weave their areas of interest into a single virtual field trip. The closest I’ve come to pursuing my volvox dream is an ancient, home-made project called the GEMweb. (Yes, I use it in my Science Education course each summer! The inter-relationships of ecology, geology, and humankind are basically the same still. Students help expand the site by contributing their own pages.) I’m eager to implement the playlist feature on the new HippoCampus site to let students to exercise a little more of that ‘shared control’ measured on the CLES. How are you empowering students to explore their interests within the scaffolding of our current educational system? How is that changing how you continue to learn?