On Your Mark, Get Set…Engineer: Water Water Everywhere & Not a Drop to Drink!

Water Water Everywhere & Not a Drop to Drink! (Ages 7-11)

Join Civil Engineer Carrie Feuer P.E.  as we do hands-on explorations of how water goes from dirty to clean.

Display: books on engineering and on the water cycle.

Opening: Ask who attended http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2016/07/on-your-mark-get-setengineer.html.  Discussion what is an engineer?  What do engineers do?  Show engineering process diagram.

Read: All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon

Talk about what the title means…All the water in the world is all the water in the world – dinosaurs drank the same water you do. 

Introduce: Mrs. Feuer (“Foyer”) – she is a civil engineer who works with water – what would be the problem with water?  It gets dirty but we have to use it again – how?

Carrie Feuer took kids through the process of making dirty water clean.

1. Kids all added dirt, sticks, stones, grass etc. to a bucket of water –> dirty water

2. Screen the water (rough garden screen to get out the big items  -- Carrie Feuer showed a bunch of things that should and shouldn’t be put down drains

3. Let the water settle so dirt and heavy stuff sinks to the bottom – 5 minuntes – spent time discussing where water is found (air, sea, rivers, clouds, sinks, toilets, drinking glass, swimming pool, etc.)

4. Poured off the water, left solids in pail

5. Added alum & chlorine* to clump solids and dis-infect, stirred for 5 minutes – while stirring read: The Magic School Bus at the Waterworks by Joanna Cole, finished with the last “experiment” in 11 Experiments That Failed by Jenny Offill.

6. Voila – clean water!

Coloring sheets to take home.

*source of these chemicals?

Photos to come.

BWL 8.16.