
Project Title: Waves of Change
Mission:
How can we make sure that there is enough clean water for everyone now and in the future?
Culminating / Take Action Project
Students have a choice of writing a letter to congress, a podcast or a news story about this global problem. Students practice writing a scientific argument using claim-evidence-reasoning as a way to prepare for these take action projects throughout the content course.
Overview
Life Habit Focus: Curiosity
Subject: Science, Public Health, ELA,
Grade: 5-7th
Topic: Water, geological processes, human impact on the earth, engineering process.
STEM Careers: Veterinarian, Biotech Engineer, Water Engineer
What Kids Learn
"Waves of Change" focuses on the urgency behind our global water crisis. Beginning with a gamified case study on an E. coli outbreak, students act as interns to Jess, a public health officer, investigating the significance of water sanitation. They engage with Dr. Stayer, a veterinarian, to understand the role of veterinary practices in ensuring food and water safety. Through claim-evidence-reasoning, they analyze the outbreak's root cause as unsanitary water and write a case study report to the Center of Disease and Prevention summarizing their findings.
The unit then expands to explore the global water crisis locally and globally, including researching what is the water crisis in many regions and the many causes to this water crisis. Student then learn about how our actions can contribute to or prevent this water crisis and they meet water engineer Elivra Gibson and innovative youth biotech engineer, Meinke van Oen. Concluding with a community project, students raise awareness about the crucial connection between sanitation and clean water availability and how we can all work to ensure that our human actions contribute to clean water for everyone. "Waves of Change" empower students to be science citizens and use science to make a difference in the world!
Virtual Field Trips
One of our goals is to develop a STEM identity in students by exposing them to many different STEM professionals who are using what students are learning in this project in their everyday lives. In this project, students interact with 3 inspiring STEM experts who work on water access and sanitation. All three experts talk to students about how important water is to our lives and how each of them are contributing to ensure we all have access to clean water and sanitation.



Veterinarian
Dr. Philip Stayer
Students meet Dr. Philip Stayer who shares his experience as a veterinarian who primarily work to ensure that the food we consume is safe. He shares how clean water is a key ingredient to ensuring we have safe produce and meat and how his job helps prevent bacteria from spreading to humans.
Utilities Engineer
Elivra Gibson
Students meet Elivra Gibson, a Utilities Engineer in Moultrie, Georgia. She is the Director of the Waster Water Utilities Plant and oversees water, electric, gas, sewage, and information technology, making sure that citizens in Moultrie have all these daily necessities. She shares about how her job ensures everyone in her city has access to clean water and what the water sanitation process involves.
Biotech Engineer
Meinke van Oen
In this module students meet Meinke van Oen, who was the United Nations Gamechanger Winner in 2023 for her invention at Algenius. As a young biotech engineer and entrepreneur, she shares why it’s important to focus on the global water crisis, and how she is using algae to help desalinate salt water while also finding ways to make sure the process is good for the environment.
Aligned Standards
NGSS Standards:
- ESS3-1: Humans depend on Earth’s land, ocean, atmosphere, and biosphere for many different resources. Minerals, fresh water, and biosphere resources are limited, and many are not renewable or replaceable over human lifetimes. These resources are distributed unevenly around the planet as a result of past geologic processes. (MS-ESS3-1)
- ESS2-2: Nearly all of Earth’s available water is in the ocean. Most fresh water is in glaciers or underground; only a tiny fraction is in streams, lakes, wetlands, and the atmosphere.
- ESS3-3: Typically, as human populations and per-capita consumption of natural resources increase, so do the negative impacts on Earth unless the activities and technologies involved are engineered otherwise. (MS-ESS3-3),(MS-ESS3-4)
- SEP: Ask and Answer Questions, Analyze and Interpret Data, Plan and Investigation
- CC: Cause and Effect, Patterns, Synthesize and evaluate information.
Public Health Standards:
- Standard 1: Students comprehend functional health knowledge to enhance health.
- Standard 3: Students demonstrate health literacy by accessing valid and reliable health information, products, and services to enhance health.
- Standard 8: Students advocate for behaviors that support personal, family, peer, school, and community health.
Common Core Literacy Standards (CCSS):
Reading:
- CCSS RI 6.7:Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.
- CCSS RI 6.8: Trace and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, distinguishing claims that are supported by reasons and evidence from claims that are not.
Writing:
- CCSS WR.6.1: Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.
- CCSS WR 6.8: Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources; assess the credibility of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and providing basic bibliographic information for sources.
- CCSS WR 6.9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Speaking:
- CCSS.SL.6.3: Interpret information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how it contributes to a topic, text, or issue under study.
- CCSS.SL.6.4: Present claims and findings, sequencing ideas logically and using pertinent descriptions, facts, and details to accentuate main ideas or themes; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation.
- CCSS.SL6.5: Include multimedia components (e.g., graphics, images, music, sound) and visual displays in presentations to clarify information.
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