Finishing Up Aquifers, On To Oceanography!

We finally finished our aquifer pamphlets and moved on to ocean currents.  Weather is affected by our ocean currents.  We will be watching Kon Tiki at the end of next week.  It's a great documentary about how primitive peoples used ocean currents to travel over 3,000 miles using ocean currents! Stay tuned!

Edible Aquifers

For the students to get a better idea in their mind of what an aquifer REALLY looks like, we made edible aquifers today in class.  This activity was great, the kids seemed to really get what we were making and without all your donations, it wouldn't have been possible, so THANK YOU!  We also had some pollution running through our aquifers and discussed how we could possibly prevent pollution in our drinking water and/or conserve our aquifer's water.  Great day in class.

The questions below needed to be answered in order to receive full credit for the activity.

1. What observations/results surprised you? What did not?
2. How did results compare among different aquifers? (Even if all students used the same option in Step 3,
each aquifer will be somewhat different.)
3. What parts of the activity were most/least like what would happen with a real aquifer? Why?
4. What happens if all of the water is pumped out of an aquifer? Where does more ground water come from?
How long do you think it would take? Is there always more ground water, or could we run out?
5. Do you think a contaminated aquifer can be cleaned? If so, how?
6. How can we conserve (save) ground water? What specifically can kids do?
7. How can we protect ground water (keep it clean)? What specifically can kids do?

Aquifer Brochures

Tuesday and Thursday we are working on aquifer brochures based on our knowledge of the Spokane-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer.  The requirements are below.  These will be 50 points and I'm looking for the best one in EACH class.

Aquifer Brochure Rubric

Aquifer Atlas

The following link has the aquifer atlas that is in class.  It will help you complete the worksheet.  We worked on the aquifer atlas worksheet Friday and Monday in class.  It's quite extensive, so work hard. Hope you all had a great weekend.

Aquifer Atlas

Aquifer Atlas Worksheet

Movie Poster Mania!

Today in class we finished watching the video over the Great Missoula Flood.  Once complete, we began making our movie posters.  Above are some examples of movie posters.  The students posters must include the following:  Title, 2 movie reviews, 3 facts, color, creative, picture, 75% or more of poster must be used.

Mystery of the Megaflood

In class, we began watching the PBS video over the Mystery of the Megaflood.  The video details how Glacial Lake Missoula formed, how the ice dam broke and where all the flooding occured around this area.  There is a worksheet that goes with it as well.  Tomorrow we will finish the video and worksheet then we will create movie posters based on the movie.  Bring your supplies!

Mystery of the Megaflood Worksheet

About the Ice Age Floods

We are onto the Great Missoula Floods that had a direct impact on this area as well as Washington and Oregon!  We were to read the packet and then summarize our reading by creating a 9 box comic.  For Wednesday, students will need posterboard (NOT TRI-FOLDS).  We will be creating posters based on our learning.  Glitter, crayons, colored pencils, markers, etc are also needed!

Ice Age Floods Reading

Comic Paper