MONROE TWP. — Kathleen Ungvarsky's third grade TAG students at Radix and Whitehall Elementary Schools in Monroe Township are deep into a STEM unit on water. What better way to learn about the drainage patterns of a watershed and the effects of point source/non-point source pollution than to build a model of a watershed, pollute it and create a rainstorm to see...
MONROE TWP. -- Kathleen Ungvarsky's third grade TAG students at Radix and Whitehall Elementary Schools in Monroe Township are deep into a STEM unit on water.
What better way to learn about the drainage patterns of a watershed and the effects of point source/non-point source pollution than to build a model of a watershed, pollute it and create a rainstorm to see what happens.
They created mountains and valleys out of sheets of aluminum foil and covered it with a plastic bag. Then they "polluted" it using top soil as fertilizer, paper as trash, glitter for car pollutants, oil from parking lots, detergent for carwash runoff and red colored water for factory waste while differentiating between the two types of pollution.
Creating a rainstorm with a water bottle, they could watch the runoff make its way down to a low-lying wetland represented by a sponge. Best yet -- that dirty polluted water is being used when the students learn the steps of the water treatment process and build their own water filters.
All of this is part of their STEM unit on "providing access to clean water to everyone." Maybe one day these students will become innovators to help solve this problem by developing ideas similar to those of the creators of the Life Saver Bottle and Life Straw. Problem solving at its best!
