As fifth graders learn more about the effects of water pollution both on human water consumption and on the animals that call various bodies of water their homes, it is important to know how the water moves.  Why you ask?

Fifth graders are discovering how water moves from one place to another through different processes.  For example, water in the ocean evaporates and condenses into a cloud.  Water from a river can runoff into the soil and infiltrate the groundwater.  Every place where water is stored is somehow interconnected.  But why is this important for an environmental engineer to know?  Only time will tell!

This week, they got to become droplets of water and travel through the water cycle themselves, using dice as a way to predict where they might be able to go.  No one water droplet's journey was the same!

Meet Salila, a young girl living in India.  Salia is very concerned one day when she notices a turtle living in extremely dirty water.  She notices that people do all sorts of things in the Ganges River where the turtle lives, many of which are affecting the overall quality of the water that both the turtle and she need.

With the help of an environmental engineer, they hope to develop a solution that will clean the water.  But just how will they do it?!?!

Vocabulary:  monsoon, environmental engineer, contaminants, water cycle, translucent, microbes, and purification. 

With substantial understanding under their belts, fifth graders are extending their foundation in environmental engineering.  We've reviewed that environmental engineers can work on solving problems in the environment's air, water, or land and that these three are completely integrated with one another.  Because fifth graders have a solid foundation in this field, some of the questions they developed are quite interesting!  

Our first notebook entry has focused on the importance of diagrams in engineering.  Diagrams, which are often seen in non-fiction texts, are an important feature that gives information and tells us something specific.  Second graders had to diagram two technologies we focused on last year in 4th grade:  a Maglev train and a shin brace.  

We established a set of "rules" to follow when completing a diagram in class.  

Rules for Diagrams
1.  It must have a title.
2.  Label just the "right" amount of parts.
3.  Labels must be near the parts they identify.
4.  Straight arrows must connect the labels to the parts.
5.  It must be neat!