With our new found discovery that groundwater is such a thing, we had a slew of questions surrounding it! Our first steps were to figure out how it actually gets into the ground!
Using a physical model (we used paper cutouts for earth material particles and marbles for water--and we were so into it Mrs. Brinza forgot to snap a pic!), we figured out how water particles squeeze around earth material particles. We remembered from our microscope tests that we could visibly see a sand particle but never a water particle, so we recognized that there was a huge size difference between these different particles.
We put our thinking into a 2D model as we worked towards consensus...water gets into the ground as gravity pulls the particles to the center of the earth. Each water particle can meander around the earth particles, until it can no longer gravitate downwards, eventually becoming stuck!
We officially defined two important types of materials--those that allow water to move through them (permeable) and those that do no allow water to move through them (impermeable). After much discussion, we're recognizing that permeable materials are WAY better than impermeable ones. Permeable materials put water back into the ground, instead of putting usable freshwater into the sewer system.
This got us thinking a bunch of things:
1. As water goes deep into the ground, how clean is it since water particles are way smaller than any other particle that may be with it? Does the ground act like a natural filter?
2. How do they actually get the water out of the ground using a well?
3. If groundwater is so important, how can we help make sure water ends up back in the ground and not in the sewers? (Seems like we have some engineering to do!)
Using a physical model (we used paper cutouts for earth material particles and marbles for water--and we were so into it Mrs. Brinza forgot to snap a pic!), we figured out how water particles squeeze around earth material particles. We remembered from our microscope tests that we could visibly see a sand particle but never a water particle, so we recognized that there was a huge size difference between these different particles.
We put our thinking into a 2D model as we worked towards consensus...water gets into the ground as gravity pulls the particles to the center of the earth. Each water particle can meander around the earth particles, until it can no longer gravitate downwards, eventually becoming stuck!
We officially defined two important types of materials--those that allow water to move through them (permeable) and those that do no allow water to move through them (impermeable). After much discussion, we're recognizing that permeable materials are WAY better than impermeable ones. Permeable materials put water back into the ground, instead of putting usable freshwater into the sewer system.
This got us thinking a bunch of things:
1. As water goes deep into the ground, how clean is it since water particles are way smaller than any other particle that may be with it? Does the ground act like a natural filter?
2. How do they actually get the water out of the ground using a well?
3. If groundwater is so important, how can we help make sure water ends up back in the ground and not in the sewers? (Seems like we have some engineering to do!)
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