Beyond-the-Basic Productivity Tools (BBPT)

Lesson Idea Name: The Story of Water

Content Area: Life Science/Environmental Science
Grade Level(s): 11th/12th grade

Content Standard Addressed:

SEV1: Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to investigate the flow of energy and cycling of matter
within an ecosystem.
SEV4: Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to analyze human impact on natural resources.
SEV5: Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about the effects of human population growth on
global ecosystems.
SB5. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to assess the interdependence of all organisms on one
another and their environment.
a. Plan and carry out investigations and analyze data to support explanations about factors affecting
biodiversity and populations in ecosystems.

https://www.georgiastandards.org/Georgia-Standards/Documents/Science-Biology-Georgia-Standards.pdf

Technology Standard Addressed:

ISTE-S 1: Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating
competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.
ISTE-S 3: Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce
creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.
ISTE-S 4: Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by
creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.
ISTE-S 6: Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the
platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.
ISTE-S 7: Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating
with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.

https://www.iste.org/standards/standards/for-students

Selected Technology Tool: ArcGIS (Proctor Creek watershed)

URL(s) to support the lesson (if applicable):

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=e2c3eb0378844024b068764644cc3261

Blooms Taxonomy Level(s):

Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating

Levels of Technology Integration (LoTi Level):

Level 1: Awareness Level 2: Exploration Level 3: Infusion Level 4: Integration
Level 5: Expansion Level 6: Refinement

Lesson idea implementation: In this lesson students will be creating their own original experiment following
the scientific method. This lesson is meant to build on the previous lessons in this series by allowing students
to apply learned concepts to actual experimentation and the creation of original hypotheses based off

Summer 2017_SJB
 Beyond-the-Basic Productivity Tools (BBPT)
scientific observations. Students will mainly use the ArcGIS site provided by the Proctor Creek watershed
organization to determine influences of both the built and natural environment on water quality indicators.
Students will use previous knowledge on the influence of various factors on watershed health in order to
determine what they will test. Through the use of ArcGIS, students will be able to measure distance between
major parks, schools, roads, and etc. and the creek (and its associated watershed) and evaluate the
relationship between factors such as distance and landscape to the quality of water in this creek. The goal of
this lesson is to allow the students autonomy in designing their own experiment and free reign to explore the
ArcGIS site and collect the information they will need to conduct their experiment. In addition, students will
complete a worksheet to identify the major parts of their experiment in order to align experiment
components with the scientific method. This lesson operates under the assumption that the students have
been exposed to lessons on the scientific method and is meant to provide practice in creating hypotheses and
designing experiments as well as data collection and presentation skills (see attached lesson worksheet).
Students will be introduced to this project by the teacher at the beginning of the class (through a brief
presentation) but the teacher will take on a mainly observer/collaborator role as students create their own
original content.

This lesson builds on all levels of Blooms Taxonomy through learning, understanding, and creating original
experiments using the scientific method. Through the use of an ArcGIS data platform students reach a LoTi
level of 4. Students build knowledge on a local watershed (Proctor Creek) and build connections between the
health of this watershed and the health of the community. This allows the students to make meaningful
connections to these concepts of watershed ecology. In addition, students take on a lead role in this
experiment and are allowed autonomy on design. This lesson has the possibility to reach a LoTi level of 5
through the sharing of this original research to blogs or at local community gatherings (town meetings,
advocacy groups). Also inclusion of water professionals and public health professionals invested in the clean
up of the Proctor Creek watershed could be invited to the classroom to share their knowledge. Students
would also possibly have the opportunity to collect water samples in the field as an extension to this mainly
web-based activity.

Summer 2017_SJB