Lesson: Water Protectors

Ask: What problems with water have you heard about or experienced? (Answers may include water shortages, plastic pollution, high bacteria levels, the Flint water crisis or other water contamination, etc.) Record responses. Discuss why water is a critical resource. Ask: How is daily life affected when people don’t have access to clean or reliable sources of water?

Have students preview the article in magazine view. Ask for volunteers to share initial questions, predictions, thoughts, or feelings they have after glancing at the visuals. Read the introductory text aloud. Connect the introduction to their pre-reading responses. Have students read the rest of the article.

Draw students’ attention to the “Nationwide Problem?” map on page 13. Ask them to share observations about the data. Ask: What is represented by the gray areas? (insufficient data) What problems might that cause? (People may not know if their water is contaminated with arsenic.) Share the skills sheet “Mapping Arsenic” from the online teaching resources. Once students have fi nished, ask them to share their answers. Discuss how getting data from the community provided scientists with information they might not have easily obtained otherwise. What other ways might community science—research conducted by regular people in collaboration with scientists—support or improve research?

Distribute the “Community Science” skills sheet. Have student groups identify a problem in their community that they could investigate in a similar way as the teens featured in the article. Provide time to create a detailed plan, share their ideas with others, and revise based on feedback. Have each group present their investigation plan. Remind students that each plan should clearly explain the problem they want to solve, how they will collect data, and how that data could be used for a solution.

Share the “Arsenic by the Numbers” skills sheet with students so that students can analyze other representations of the data.

⇨ VIDEO EXTRA: Learn more about a teen’s work on water contamination.