This course is an overview of engineering approaches to protecting water quality with an emphasis on fundamental principals. Theory and conceptual design of systems for treating municipal wastewater and drinking water are discussed, as well as reactor theory, process kinetics, and models. Physical, chemical, and biological processes are presented, including sedimentation, filtration, biological treatment, disinfection, and sludge processing. Finally, there is discussion of engineered and natural processes for wastewater treatment.

This course is an overview of engineering approaches to protecting water quality with an emphasis on fundamental principals. Theory and conceptual design of systems for treating municipal wastewater and drinking water are discussed, as well as reactor theory, process kinetics, and models. Physical, chemical, and biological processes are presented, including sedimentation, filtration, biological treatment, disinfection, and sludge processing. Finally, there is discussion of engineered and natural processes for wastewater treatment.

WOW lessons are designed for infusion into the existing science curriculums for college freshmen and advanced high school students. The lessons use the aquatic environment and real lake data to explore basic science concepts through two different approaches: a directed study “Studying” and an inquiry “Investigating” approach. The directed studies allow students to apply and learn concepts through direct, guided experience. The inquiry lessons provide a more open-ended opportunity for students to discover the same concepts.
Each teacher's lesson plan provides general direction for guiding students to understand the topic through the directed study and the inquiry approach. Student lessons are organized into a thinking framework of six sequential components that are critical for improving scientific and technological literacy: knowledge base, experimental design, data collection, data management and analysis, interpretation of results, and reporting results. The teacher lesson plans follow the same format.
Lesson titles are simple and descriptive so that you may easily find useful materials. We recommend you begin by reviewing the student lessons that may be appropriate for your class. When you've found a student lesson to use, return to the menu below to review the associated teacher's lesson plan. There are tutorials to help you and your students get familiar with the site, they may be accessed from the menu below, or at the top of any 'teacher' page.

Students build a model of a watershed, apply water to the model, and explore what happens when elements of the watershed are changed.

In this scenario-based activity, students design ways to either clean a water source or find a new water source, depending on given hypothetical family scenarios. They act as engineers to draw and write about what they could do to provide water to a community facing a water crisis. They also learn the basic steps of the engineering design process.

This activity is a field investigation where students investigate the water quality of a local stream or pond.

Students learn about physical models of groundwater and how environmental engineers determine possible sites for drinking water wells. During the activity, students create their own groundwater well models using coffee cans and wire screening. They add red food coloring to their models to see how pollutants can migrate through the groundwater into a drinking water resource.

This short (15-25 min) writing activity asks students to respond to a series of prompts related to the content knowledge and societal issues explored in the "What's in the Water?" PFAS Contamination Unit". Students complete the activity twice- once before the start of the 7-lesson unit, and again at the end, to track their learning.

In the culminating activity from "What's in the Water?" PFAS Contamination Unit" A community-engaged inquiry unit exploring PFAS contamination in North Carolina [link coming soon], students partnered with a local grassroots advocacy organization to design public-facing materials to educate local residents about the drinking water crisis in Pittsboro, NC. By integrating information from interviews with local stakeholders, teams developed digital and print materials to educate residents about the medical, economic, and political challenges associated with high levels of emerging contaminants in their drinking water.

In the sixth lesson of the "What's in the Water?" PFAS Contamination Unit", students learn about how drinking water quality and PFAS are regulated at the federal and state levels in the U.S. and within the E.U. to explore different approaches to the question of regulation. Using their knowledge from all the prior lessons in the unit, students will discuss benefits and challenges of PFAS regulation at different levels of the government, and contrast the likely outcomes of proactive vs. retroactive regulatory approaches. Finally, student groups take on the roles of various constituencies, and evaluate the current regulatory paradigm through the lens of that population.

This short demonstration will open students' eyes to the distribution of various water sources on our Earth, but also the limited amount of fresh water for our daily use.

In this video segment from Planet H20: Water World, experts and teens inside and outside the Great Lakes watershed provide different perspectives on sharing the water from one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world.

This activity is a field activity where students will perform various water quality tests to determine the types of organisms that live in a local pond and stream, and the characteristics that those aquatic environments seem to have that the organisms favor.

Drinking water comes from many different sources, including surface water and groundwater. Environmental engineers analyze the physical properties of groundwater to predict how and where surface contaminants will travel. In this lesson, students will learn about several possible scenarios of contamination to drinking water. They will analyze the movement of example contaminants through groundwater such as environmental engineers must do (i.e., engineers identify and analyze existing contamination of water sources in order to produce high quality drinking water for consumers).

This activity focuses on getting students to think about bacteria, water quality and water treatment processes. Students develop and test their hypotheses about the "cleanliness" of three water samples prepared by the teacher. Then they grow bacteria in Petri dishes from the water samples. They learn how private septic systems and community sewage and wastewater treatment plants work, the consequences to the surrounding environment and wildlife from human wastewater, and what measurements of the released "clean" water are monitored to minimize harm to receiving rivers and lakes.