Students measure the effectiveness of water filters in purifying contaminated water. They prepare test water by creating different concentrations of bleach (chlorine-contaminated) water. After passing the contaminated water through commercially available Brita® water filters designed to purify drinking water, students determine the chlorine concentration of the purified water using chlorine test strips and measure the adsorption of chlorine onto activated carbon over time. They graph and analyze their results to determine the effectiveness of the filters. The household active carbon filters used are one example of engineer-designed water purification systems.

The National Water Information System (NWIS) Mapper provides access to over 1.5 million sites contained in the USGS National Water Information System (NWIS), including sites where current and historical surface-water, groundwater, springs, and atmospheric data has been collected. Users can search by site type, data type, site number, or place.

Students learn about floods, discovering that different types of floods occur from different water sources, but primarily from heavy rainfall. While floods occur naturally and have benefits such as creating fertile farmland, students learn that with the increase in human population in flood-prone areas, floods are become increasingly problematic. Both natural and manmade factors contribute to floods. Students learn what makes floods dangerous and what engineers design to predict, control and survive floods.

Students learn about the importance of dams by watching a video that presents historical and current information on dams, as well as descriptions of global water resources and the hydrologic cycle. Students also learn about different types of dams, all designed to resist the forces on dams. (If the free, 15-minute "Water and Dams in Today's World" video cannot be obtained in time, the lesson can still be taught. See the Additional Multimedia Support section for how to obtain the DVD or VHS videotape, or a PowerPoint presentation with similar content [also attached].)

Students learn about the water cycle and its key components. First, they learn about the concept of a watershed and why it is important in the context of engineering hydrology. Then they learn how we can use the theory of conservation of mass to estimate the amount of water that enters a watershed (precipitation, groundwater flowing in) and exits a watershed (evaporation, runoff, groundwater out). Finally, students learn about runoff and how we visualize runoff in the form of hydrographs.

Students learn the history of the waterwheel and common uses for water turbines today. They explore kinetic energy by creating their own experimental waterwheel from a two-liter plastic bottle. They investigate the transformations of energy involved in turning the blades of a hydro-turbine into work, and experiment with how weight affects the rotational rate of the waterwheel. Students also discuss and explore the characteristics of hydroelectric plants.

Make waves with a dripping faucet, audio speaker, or laser! Add a second source or a pair of slits to create an interference pattern.

Students are presented with the concepts of wetting and contact angle. They are also introduced to the distinction between hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces. Students observe how different surfaces are used to maintain visibility under different conditions.

At some point, many children wish for a pet animal to play with and care for. But what does it take to keep an animal alive and healthy? In this engaging lesson plan, children will act out adopting a pet and shopping for items based on its needs. As they bring their items together, they will notice that every animal needs food, water, shelter, and air to survive.

In this scenario-based activity, students design ways to either clean a water source or find a new water source, depending on given hypothetical family scenarios. They act as engineers to draw and write about what they could do to provide water to a community facing a water crisis. They also learn the basic steps of the engineering design process.

This is a series of lessons where students experience and learn about water as it moves through the water cycle.

Students learn about physical models of groundwater and how environmental engineers determine possible sites for drinking water wells. During the activity, students create their own groundwater well models using coffee cans and wire screening. They add red food coloring to their models to see how pollutants can migrate through the groundwater into a drinking water resource.

In this activity, students use models to investigate the process and consequences of water contamination on the land, groundwater, and plants. This is a good introduction to building water filters found in the associated activity, The Dirty Water Project.

How does our climate affect us? How do we decide what to wear each day? What factors determine if our clothing choices are comfortable? What is the source of our water? Students explore characteristics that define climatic regions. They learn how tropical, desert, coastal and alpine climates result in different lifestyle, clothing, water source and food options for the people who live there. They learn that a location's latitude, altitude, land features, weather conditions, and distance from large bodies of water, determines its climate. Students discuss how engineers help us adapt to all climates by designing clothing, shelters, weather technologies and clean water systems.

Students learn about the Earth's water cycle, especially about evaporation. Once a dam is constructed, its reservoir becomes a part of the region's natural hydrologic cycle by receiving precipitation, storing runoff water and evaporating water. Although almost impossible to see, and not as familiar to most people as precipitation, evaporation plays a critical role in the hydrologic cycle, and is especially of interest to engineers designing new dams and reservoirs, such as those that Splash Engineering is designing for Thirsty County.

Students are introduced to the concept of a dam and its potential benefits, which include water supply, electricity generation, flood control, recreation and irrigation. This lesson begins an ongoing classroom scenario in which student engineering teams working for the Splash Engineering firm design dams for a fictitious client, Thirsty County.

This activity is an in-class experiment where students predict, observe, and summarize what will happen when ice melts in a cup of water.

This is the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources GIS Open Data Portal. It is a free resource for locating, viewing, and downloading data developed and/or maintained by the Wisconsin DNR.

This site also has categories of: Water, Fish and Wildlife, Managed Lands, Cimate, Parks and Recreation, Forestry, Transportation, Indexess and PLSS, Boundaries and Land Cover and Vegetation.

The site also has Applications that include: PFAS in Wisconsin Data Viewer, Western Coulee and Ridges Regional Master Plan, North Central Forest Regional Master Plan, Wildfires Dashboard App, Report Invasive Species, CWD reporting, etc

Wisconsin's 15,000 lakes. The DNR partners with the University of Wisconsin - Extension and citizens around the state to help protect and maintain these amazing natural resources while providing some of the best recreational opportunities in the nation. More than 600 lake organizations and thousands of volunteers play a leadership role in the stewardship of Wisconsin's lakes.

Find a Lake, Lake Water Quality Data, Lake Maps, Plants and Aquatic invasive Insects - are all linked to this site.

Volunteers, DNR staff, county staff and others collect water clarity, temperature and dissolved oxygen, as well as other water quality data, on lakes across Wisconsin. Around 1,000 volunteers are currently active, and the network has been going strong since 1986. Water clarity is measured with a black and white disk called a "Secchi Disk".

Satellite images are used to retrieve water clarity data for lakes across the state. This effort began in 1999 when the University of Wisconsin-Madison Environmental Remote Sensing Center (ERSC) developed a model for the retrieval of water clarity data from satellite images and Citizen Lake Monitoring Network volunteers provided on-the-ground Secchi data to calibrate this model for each satellite image. Water clarity data was retrieved for over 8,000 lakes statewide between 1999 and 2001. The DNR continues to analyze data in this way today in its remote sensing program.