Students are introduced to innovative stormwater management strategies that are being used to restore the hydrology and water quality of urbanized areas to pre-development conditions. Collectively called green infrastructure (GI) and low-impact development (LID) technologies, they include green roofs and vegetative walls, bioretention or rain gardens, bioswales, planter boxes, permeable pavement, urban tree canopy, rainwater harvesting, downspout disconnection, green streets and alleys, and green parking. These approaches differ from the traditional centralized stormwater collection system with the idea of handling stormwater at its sources, resulting in many environmental, economic and societal benefits. A PowerPoint® presentation provides photographic examples, and a companion file gives students the opportunity to sketch in their ideas for using the technologies to make improvements to 10 real-world design scenarios.

Faced with the potential of a large expense related to water quality, the Portland (Maine) Water District performed a thorough analysis of their options. Their choice came down to making an investment in conservation or concrete.

Students are presented with a guide to rain garden construction in an activity that culminates the unit and pulls together what they have learned and prepared in materials during the three previous associated activities. They learn about the four vertical zones that make up a typical rain garden with the purpose to cultivate natural infiltration of stormwater. Student groups create personal rain gardens planted with native species that can be installed on the school campus, within the surrounding community, or at students' homes to provide a green infrastructure and low-impact development technology solution for areas with poor drainage that often flood during storm events.

This activity is a mock investigation into different macroinvertebrates found in the streams in your local city. Students will record and analyze data that will lead them to learn if the water quality is good or bad in their backyard.

This lesson plan helps students understand the factors that affect water quality and the conditions that allow for different animals and plants to survive. Students will look at the effects of water quality on various water-related activities and describe water as an environmental, economic and social resource. The students will also learn how engineers use water quality information to make decisions about stream modifications.

This activity is a hands-on modeling of the effects of pollution on our ground and surface water. Students will observe and record their observations as pollution is placed on the ground in their model and it is rained upon.

Learn about urban water services, focusing on conventional technologies for drinking water treatment. This course focuses on conventional technologies for drinking water treatment. Unit processes, involved in the treatment chain, are discussed as well as the physical, chemical and biological processes involved. The emphasis is on the effect of treatment on water quality and the dimensions of the unit processes in the treatment chain. After the course one should be able to recognise the process units, describe their function, and make basic calculations for a preliminary design of a drinking water treatment plant.

This lesson prevents an overview of the sources, groups, and types of pollutants affecting the environment. In addition, learners will take an active part in being the “pollution solution” rather than the problem.

This 3-part lesson begins with a field activity beside a lake or stream where students collect and identify macro invertebrates. During the second and third portions of the lesson, students conduct research to answer questions that they have regarding the macro invertebrates that they have identified and then based on the types of macro invertebrates found make a general determination of the cleanliness of the lake.

This activity is a field investigation where students gather data on ponds and compare the results to determine the quality of the water.

In activity is a Biology field lab where students will investigate the relative health of an aquatic system based on bioindicators. Students will then summarize and reflect upon their findings.

In this investigation, students gather biotic and abiotic data and samples in the field, develop an experiment to test another abiotic factor in the lab, synthesize group data, interpret their findings and make a claim on the health of the wetland ecosystem.

Activities offer students the opportunity to learn about multiple facets of waterbodies and pollution, including aquatic life (indicator species), local concerns, and public outreach through research, teamwork, and role-playing exercises.

In this video from Science City, Kerri-Ann Richard, an environmental engineer, describes how she became interested in the field and why it is important to clean up the environment by removing contaminants from soil and ground water.

This activity is an on-line research activity in which students research different Minnesota lakes and determine their physical characteristics, chemical characteristics, and the overall health of the lake.

In this video profile produced for Teachers' Domain, meet La'ona DeWilde, an environmental biologist who integrates her Athabascan heritage and her Western scientific training to help remote Alaskan villages address environmental issues.

This activity is a field investigation where students can go to a body of water and collect the macroinvertebrates there and identify them. Based on what they find, they can assess the water quality by determining the biotic index. Based on the Macorinvertebrate Mayhem from Project Wet.

Students use everyday building materials sand, pea gravel, cement and water to create and test pervious pavement. They learn what materials make up a traditional, impervious concrete mix and how pervious pavement mixes differ. Groups are challenged to create their own pervious pavement mixes, experimenting with material ratios to evaluate how infiltration rates change with different mix combinations.

This activity is a field investigation where students gather and observe macroinvertebrates in a pond system. From their initial observations, students will formulate a question and test procedures.