Lesson Plan Title: Water filtration modelConcept / Topic to Teach: How water is filtered naturally through the layers underneath the ground, and how to replicate/ represent this on a smaller scale. Target audience: Primary school: 3 rd to 6 th class and Secondary: all years. General Goal(s): Firstly to understand the natural process groundwater goes through and to appreciate how long this process can take. Then to appreciate how outside impacts (e.g. pollution and over-abstraction) can affect this source of freshwater. Specific Objectives: •On a practical level: how to make the filtration model •To illustrate how water is cleaned in the natural environment •To reveal the dynamics of water i.e. where it goes when it falls on the ground •To show how modern water treatment uses similar materials (sand/ stone) to those which clean water in the natural environment Seven Step Link: All
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N.N.B. It takes about 10/ 15 minutes for the dirty water to become clean by goingthrough the filter, so this is why it has to be part of a bigger talk. The way to do it
is at the start of the lesson, to get two pupils to start the filtration process. I
mention to the rest of the class that I’ll come back to this particular experiment in
a while, and then come back to it in a few minutes after I have discussed other
aspects of water and built up to it.
Step-By-Step Procedures:
I make the water filter at home and the students just run the dirty water through it
until it is clean. This is because it can be messy and takes time anyway. To make
the water filtration model:
• Cut the base off a 2 litre bottle, it can be sharp afterwards so you have to
give it quick sand down with something to blunt the edges in case pupils
holding it cut themselves.• Then put a round hole in the lid about 6mm in diameter. You might have
your own way, but I found the best was to heat something metal like a drill
bit and it goes through the plastic real easily (that’s the hardest bit!).
Otherwise it’s hard to make a hole in the lid at all.
• Put the lid back on the bottle and put a small bit of grass/ moss in the bottom
to stop sand falling out.
• Then fill about a third of the bottle with building sand.• Fill the next third with pebbles.
• Fill almost the last third (don’t go right to the top) with grass/ moss.