With limited supplies and a cost constraint in mind, fifth graders must filter contaminated water to the most transparent level as possible.  During our brainstorming phase, students worked independently to imagine the designs they think would best meet the criteria.  There are no wrong answers here,  but they must be able to defend their reasoning.  Being an engineer means working in teams, which means they must plan and test their water filtration systems together.  Check out some of their "imagined" solutions below!   

Just how can we filter water so that it looks most like Formula #1?

Fifth graders will be working towards a goal to filter water according to the following criteria:

1.  Time
2.  Cost
3.  Color
4.  Particles

Be on the lookout for their designs and the success stories of each!

With three different types of water to test, fifth graders are making observations about how screen, coffee filters, and sand/gravel stand up to contaminants.

Collecting both qualitative and qualitative data, they are seeing how the clarity of the water changes as well as the length of time it takes to filter the water.  How transparent can we get the water to become?  How fast can we complete the process?  Is faster always better?  Or does the clarity of the water become compromised?
These are just some of the questions we're investigating as we'll begin to design our own water filters!

Now that fifth graders have identified sources of pollution and whether they are natural or artificial, they are beginning to use the engineering design process.  Our first step in the engineering design process is to ask questions.  Fifth graders are asking questions about which materials they could possibly use to clean one of three types of contaminated water. 

Will the material trap large debris like twigs or floating fertilizer?  Will the material absorb materials that are too small to be seen with the naked eye?  How can we tell if the material has done it

The water they'll be cleaning has either been contaminated with cornstarch, soil, or tea.  By looking at various materials and their properties, they will actually test specific materials and determine which materials will best meet the goal of cleaning water.