Grade Level(s): Instructor:
Course: # of Students:
3 rd -5 th
25
Unit Topic:
Lesson Title:
Stormwater Detectives
Stormwater-The Prime Suspect
Objectives
Learning Goals for the Unit (being met by this lesson):
Upon completion of this unit, students will demonstrate their understanding of science through the application of engineering practices to stormwater management.
Specific/Enabling Objectives (to reach terminal objective):
Upon completion of this lesson, students will be able to:
1.
Define watershed
2.
Define pervious surfaces, impervious surfaces, and stormwater and explain how they are linked
3.
Identify pervious and impervious surfaces on an a map
4.
Calculate the area of impervious and pervious surface and volume of stormwater produced from a typical residential lot
Assessment
Obj.
No.
Type
(F/S)
Description of Assessment
(if test, give questions/items from test)
1 F Classroom discussion as facilitated by instructor
2
3
F
F
Classroom discussion as facilitated by instructor
Classroom discussion as facilitated by instructor
4 F Classroom discussion as facilitated by instructor
Connections to Standards
Objective 1

5-ESS2-1 Develop a model using an example to describe the way the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and/or atmosphere interact.
Objective 2

K.MD.2 Directly compare two objects with a measureable attribute in common, to see which object has “more of”/”less of” the attribute, and describe the difference.
Objective 3

2-ESS2-2 Develop a model to represent the shapes and kinds of land and bodies of water in an area.

Objective 4

5-ESS2-1 Develop a model using an example to describe the way the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and/or atmosphere interact.

3.MD.5, 3.MD.6, and 3.MD.7 - Understand concepts of area and relate area to multiplication and to addition.

4.MD.1, 4.MD.2, and 4.MD.3 - Solve problem involving measurement and conversion of measurements from a larger unit to a smaller unit.

5. MD.1Convert like measurement units within a given measurement system.

5.MD.3,5.MD.4,and 5.MD.5 - Understand concepts of volume and relate volume to multiplication and addition.
Resources and Materials
Handouts:

Brook and Rio story (Chapter 2)

Figure 1-1(pg. 3) of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Stormwater
Management Low Impact Development Guidelines for New Development and
Redevelopment.

Gridded drawing of a typical residential lot

Area and volume worksheet

Decoder key

Clues
Materials:

Letter-size sheet of paper

Water soluble markers (red and blue)

Spray bottle of water

Paper towels

Strainer

Balloon

Container to catch water

Measuring tape

Container with about 500 mL of water

Small plastic container to catch water

Plastic bag of 100 pieces of elbow macaroni for each student in the class

Food coloring

8, 1L bottles each with pre-measured amounts of blue-dyed water

Ruler (12 inches) for each student in the class

Pencil with eraser for each student in the class

Crayons or markers (green and red) for each student in the class

Calculator for each student in the class

Gridded paper (engineering paper) for each student in the class

Clues

Container with about 600 mL of water

5 small cups

Resources/References

4DE-01po Unit 1: What is a Watershed? The Southern Region 4-H2O Ambassador
Program, Curriculum Unit 1
( http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/4de/4de01po/4de01po.pdf
)

Agouridis, C.T., S.J. Wightman, J.A. Villines, and J.D. Luck. 2011. AEN-106 Reducing
Stormwater Pollution ( http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/aen/aen106/aen106.pdf
)

Osborne, A., S. Jenkins, and C. Agouridis. 2013. HEV-203 Stormwater
( http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/HENV/HENV203/HENV203.pdf
)

Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Stormwater Management Low Impact
Development Guidelines for New Development and Redevelopment
( http://www.lexingtonky.gov/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=21986 )
INTRODUCTION (Preparation/Interest Approach/Learning Context)
In this lesson, Stormwater-The Prime Suspect , students will learn what happens when pervious surfaces such as soil are covered with impervious ones such as concrete.
Teacher will read the following to the students at the beginning of the lesson.
After learning about infiltration and the water cycle, Brook and Rio decided to take a quick water break. While walking along a road by the stream Brook accidently dropped her water bottle on the ground. As Brook hurried to pick it up, she noticed that the spilt water on the road didn’t infiltrate. Instead, the water remained on top of the road.
Questions raced through Brook’s head. Why doesn’t the water infiltrate? What kind of surface is this? Could this be the prime suspect that’s causing the stream to look so poorly?
Teacher will ask students the following questions to recall information from previous lessons:
1.
What is the water cycle and what are the four main stages?
2.
What is infiltration
3.
What are the three main soil types?
4.
How does soil type affect infiltration?
Water Cycle: A cycle that describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth.
The four main stages are precipitation, infiltration, evaporation and condensation.
Precipitation: Water that comes from clouds. Precipitation is mostly in the form of rain.
Infiltration: Process whereby water that soaks into the ground.
Evaporation: Process whereby water changes from liquid to gas.
Condensation: Process whereby water vapor changes into a liquid.

The three main soil types are sand , silt and clay .
Water can infiltrate soils with larger spaces between particles faster. Sand has the largest spaces followed by silt and clay.
LESSON (Presentation, Methods & Application)
Objective 1: Define watershed
Teacher will as students the following question:
1.
Has anyone ever heard the term watershed?
2.
Has anyone ever been in a watershed?
Watershed: Area of land that drains into a lake, river, stream or wetland.
A watershed is nature’s boundary for water. Remember that water always flows downhill.
Because of this, all of the land on Earth is divided into watersheds. These watersheds can be small, such as the size of a park, or they can be very large and include many states.
Everyone is in a watershed all of the time. You are in a watershed right now!
Wad-ershed Demonstration
Crumble a white letter-sized sheet of paper into a ball. Unwrap the paper, but do not flatten completely. Use a water soluble red marker to mark the highest points on the paper. Have the students point out the locations where streams might be located (these will be the lowest points). Use a water soluble blue marker to identify the stream locations. Place the watershed on a table (or on a pan). Use a stray bottle to gently mist the watershed (this represents rainfall).
Objective 2: Define pervious surfaces, impervious surfaces, and stormwater and explain how they are linked
Teacher will ask students the following question:
1.
Has anyone ever heard the term pervious or impervious?
2.
Has anyone heard the term surfaces?
3.
What are examples of pervious surfaces and impervious surfaces in your neighborhood?
4.
Recalling what we learned last time about soil types and infiltration, do all pervious surfaces behave the same?
Pervious: Allowing something, especially liquids like water, to pass through. This means that water can infiltrate a pervious surface.
Impervious: Not allowing anything, such as liquids, to pass through. This means that water cannot infiltrate an impervious surface.
Surface: Boundary of an object or outermost layer of the land
Surfaces can refer to the outer layer or boundary of an object. For example, think of your school. Your school has an inside, where you are now, as well as an outside. When you are outside of your school and you touch it, you are touching its surface or outer layer.

A surface can also refer to the outermost layer of land. When you are at the park, on the playground, or walking on the sidewalk, you are walking on the surface of the land.
Pervious and Impervious Demonstration
Teacher will hold up a strainer and a balloon. Teacher will ask which object is pervious and which one is impervious and why. Demonstrate that the strainer is pervious by pouring water through it. Demonstrate that the balloon is impervious by pouring water in it (or blowing it up).
Use a container, such as Tupperware, to catch the water.
Both pervious and impervious surfaces are all around us. The most common example of a pervious surface is soil. What makes a surface or an object pervious is the presence of holes or paths for water to flow through. Examples of impervious surfaces are roads, sidewalks, driveways and the roofs of buildings.
Not all pervious surfaces behave the same. Some pervious surfaces allow water to flow through quickly while others do not. For example, sand allows water to flow through quickly while clay does not.
Model Activity
The model is constructed of both impervious and pervious surfaces. Teacher will ask students to pick out areas they believe are impervious and pervious and explain why. Pour water on the different surfaces to demonstrate how impervious surfaces (i.e. the roof, road and driveway) do now absorb water while pervious ones (i.e. grass) do absorb water.
The teacher will demonstrate how not all pervious surfaces behave the same. On the front of the model there are five containers with materials (sand, silt, clay, gravel and marbles) having different infiltration rates. The teacher will have the class vote on which materials they believe will allow water to infiltrate the quickest. The teacher will ask the students to gather around the model. Have five ½ cups of water measured out. Ask for five student volunteers to pour the water into each container at the same time. Students will be able to see how different materials affect the infiltration rates. Show the students how water ponds on clay soils but infiltrates quickly through sandy soils.
Infiltration rate:
Teacher will ask students the following question:
1.
When it rains, what happens to the water?
When it rains, some of the water infiltrates into the ground (pervious surfaces only), but not all of the rain. Some of the rain will eventually evaporate, but not all of it. The rest of the rain becomes stormwater runoff (stormwater).
Stormwater: Excess water from rainfall and snowmelts that flows over the ground and does not infiltrate into the soil

The more impervious areas we have in a watershed, the more stormwater. By increasing impervious areas, we have increased the amount of stormwater.
Teacher will hand out a copy of Figure 1-1 (pg. 3) of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County
Government Stormwater Management Low Impact Development Guidelines for New
Development and Redevelopment. Teacher will write on the board the percentage of rain that becomes evaporation, infiltration and runoff for typical undeveloped and developed areas.
Teacher will ask the following question:
1.
What is a percentage?
Percentage: Part of a whole expressed in hundredths. Calculated by dividing something into
100 parts.
Macaroni Demonstration (Optional)
Teacher will give each student a bag of 100 pieces of elbow macaroni. Teacher will ask students to count out the pieces of macaroni that make-up 5% (5 pieces), 10% (10 pieces), and
20% (20 pieces).
Runoff Volume Demonstration
Teacher will show students eight containers, such as 1L bottles. Bottles 1-4 will represent stormwater for a typical undeveloped area while Bottles 5-8 represent stormwater for a typical urban area. Bottles 1 and 5 represent rain and contain 1L (1,000 mL) of water each (it may help to color the water with food coloring). Bottles 2-4 represent evaporation (400 mL), infiltration
(500 mL), and runoff (100 mL) from a typical undeveloped area. Bottles 5-8 represent evaporation (300 mL), infiltration (150 mL), and runoff (550 mL) from a typical urban area.
Use the bottles to create graphs comparing developed and undeveloped areas.
Teacher will ask students the following questions:
1.
What are examples of undeveloped places and developed places?
2.
What happens to the rain when land is developed?
Examples of undeveloped places include forests, pastures, parks (not including sidewalks and building).
Examples of developed places include homes, subdivision, and cities.
When the land in developed, meaning the amount impervious surfaces are increased, less rain can infiltrate the ground. Because of this, more rain becomes runoff or stormwater.
In the next lesson, we will learn where this stormwater goes.

Objective 3: Identify pervious and impervious surfaces on a map
Objective 4: Calculate the area of impervious and pervious surfaces and volume of stormwater produced from a typical residential lot
Teacher will hand out the gridded drawing showing a typical residential lot, the area and volume worksheet, and a ruler. The drawing should include a house, driveway, yard and road, and each area should be labeled.
Teacher will explain that the drawing is scaled (1 block=1/2 inch or 2 blocks=1 inch; 1 inch =
10 feet).
Teacher will ask the following question:
1.
What is a residential lot?
2.
Has anyone ever heard of a measurement scale?
3.
Has anyone ever heard of a scaling factor?
Residential lot: A small area of land used for a home.
Measurement scale: A series of calibrated or known marks on an instrument such as a ruler.
Scaling factor: A ratio between two sets of measurements.
With drawings, it is the ratio between the measurements on the drawing to the measurement of the original (full-sized) object.
It may help to demonstrate scaling factors using your height or a student’s height. Use the same scale as the drawing (1 inch=10 feet).
Teacher will ask the students to color the pervious areas green and the impervious areas red (or other distinguishing colors). Teacher then ask the students to measure the length and width of 1) the residential lot, 2) each impervious surface, and 3) each pervious surface. Teacher will record values on the board.
Teacher will ask the following questions:
1.
What is area and how do we calculate it on the drawing?
2.
What is volume and how do we calculate it?
Area: The surface included within a closed plane figure, measured in square units.
We can calculate area by counting grids and then multiplying by the scaling factor, or for square and rectangular surfaces, we can multiply the length by the width.
Area=length x width (A=l x w)
Volume: The amount of space occupied by 3D (3 dimensional) or solid object.
We can calculate volume by multiplying area by depth.
Volume=area x depth (V=A x d)

Teacher will demonstrate area and volume using a rectangular container and water. Measure the length and width of the container to calculate area. Next, pour 1 inch of water into the container to show volume. Demonstrate area and volume with a square and a cube.
Teacher will ask students to 1) calculate the area of each surface and 2) calculate the total impervious and pervious areas.
Teacher will ask students the following questions:
1.
What is the percentage of rain that becomes runoff for impervious surfaces?
2.
What is the percentage of rain that becomes runoff for pervious surfaces, which we can estimate by assuming it is like undeveloped land?
3.
How many inches are in 1 foot?
4.
If a 1 inch of rain fell on the residential lot, what is the stormwater volume? What would be the stormwater volume if the lot was not developed (no house, driveway or road)?
Assume about 100% of the rain becomes runoff for impervious surfaces for the residential lot.
Assume about 10% of the rain becomes runoff for pervious surfaces.
Teacher will have the students calculate the percentages of impervious and pervious surfaces for the residential lot.
Teacher will have the students look at their rulers. Teacher will tell the students that each ruler is equal to 1 foot. There are 12 inches in 1 foot. Teacher will explain that the drawing is based on a scale of 1 inch=10 feet.
Teacher will explain that to calculate volume, the area and depth must be in the same units
(feet). 12 inches = 1foot.
Teacher will write the calculations on the board.
Volume (impervious surfaces) = Area (impervious surfaces, in ft) x 1 inch x (1 foot/12 inches) x 1 (represents 100%)
Volume (pervious surfaces) = Area (pervious surfaces, in ft) x 1 inch x (1 foot/12 inches) x 0.1
(represents 10 %)
Total volume = Volume (impervious surfaces) + Volume (pervious surfaces)
If the residential lot was not developed, then the stormwater volume would be:
Volume=Area (residential lot, in inches) x 1 inch x (1 foot/12 inches) x 0.1 (represents 10 %)
Teacher will hand students a gridded piece of paper (engineering paper) and will ask students to create a graph comparing the volume of stormwater from the lot before and after it was developed.

Model Activity
Teacher will hand out an area and volume worksheet and a ruler for the model.
Teacher will have students point out impervious areas and pervious areas on the model.
Teacher will have students measure the areas of pervious and impervious surfaces on the model.
The model is designed so that the impervious areas are rectangular shaped so that the surfaces are easy to measure. Students need to fill their worksheets with these measurements.
Teacher will ask students to 1) calculate the area of each surface and 2) calculate the total pervious and impervious areas.
Teacher will ask students to calculate what percentage of the model is impervious and pervious.
Teacher will use the ruler to explain scaling. The teacher will explain how 12 inches = 1 foot.
Once the students understand how scaling works, the teacher will explain how the model is based off a scale of 1 inch=3 feet.
Teacher will write the calculations on the board.
Volume (impervious surfaces) = Area (impervious surfaces, in inches) x 1 inch x (1 foot/12 inches) 3 x 1 (represents 100%)
Volume (pervious surfaces) = Area (pervious surfaces, in inches) x 1 inch x (1 foot/12 inches)
3 x 0.1 (represents 10 %)
Total volume = Volume (impervious surfaces) + Volume (pervious surfaces)
If the residential lot was not developed, then the stormwater volume would be:
Volume=Area (residential lot, in inches) x 1 inch x (1 foot/12 inches)
3
x 0.1(represents 10 %)
Teacher will hand students a gridded piece of paper (engineering paper) and will ask students to create a graph comparing the volume of stormwater from the lot before and after it was developed.
Wrap Up: Closure, Review for the Days Lesson
Teacher will re-emphasize the main points of the day by asking the following questions:
1.
What is a watershed?
2.
What is an example of a pervious surface?
3.
What is an example of an impervious surface?
4.
What is stormwater?
5.
How are impervious surfaces and stormwater volume related?

Teacher will give the students a sheet of paper with the following clues to decode along with the decoder key:
1.
Impervious
2.
Pervious
3.
Stormwater volume
4.
Runoff