In this lesson, students will explore groundwater storage and travel by building a simple model aquifer. Later, students will investigate groundwater/surface water interactions and pollution travel by exploring more complex groundwater simulators. This lesson is suitable for grade 5, but questions can be modified to include grades 6, 7, and 8.
Day 1 introduces the aquifer through a 35 minute lesson.
Day 2 explores groundwater and pollution travel through the aquifer through a 50 minute lesson.
Standards: 4-5 INQF models, 4-5 INQD investigate,
Standards Justification
4-5 INQF models: This lesson meets the models standard because students build their own simple aquifer models and later use groundwater models to understand the water cycle and how groundwater and surface water relate and interact. Students will be asked to explain how the groundwater model is different from the real water cycle.
4-5 INQD investigate: Students will record and organize data using appropriate units and tables.
Outcomes
Knowledge:

Students will explain that an aquifer is composed of layers of sediment (gravel, sand, silt, clay) and will describe pore space and aquifer recharge. Students will describe the impact of pumping on the water table.

Students will be able to explain that all precipitation does not runoff (a possible pre-conception), and that groundwater is an important part of our watershed.
 Students will see how pollution (the red food dye) travels through an aquifer – sediments have different permeabilities, allowing the water and pollution to travel at various speeds.
Skills:

Students will be able to simulate natural processes in a classroom setting with models.

Students will be able to measure distances and record travel times to calculate velocities.

Students will organize data in tables.
Materials and Equipment

Day 1 (Engage, Explore, and Explain)

Clear cups or clear plastic containers

Gravel (sand if desired)
 grass or leaves
 water
 blue dye to mix with water (precipitation)
 soap pumps
Day 2 (Extend/Elaborate and Evaluate)

7 ground water models with features re-labeled to match local bodies of water
(see diagram in part 1)

Red (pollution) and blue (groundwater) food coloring

Eye droppers
 Stop watches

Rulers

Paper towel

Pencil

Lab handout
Key words
Surface water: Water that exists on the surface of the earth in rivers, streams, lakes, oceans, puddles, etc.
Sediment (ecology word): Small, wind blown or water-carried pieces of rock
Aquifer: A geological formation of sediment layers that stores and supplies groundwater that we used to drink, shower, cook, and clean.
Groundwater: Water that exists below the surface of the earth within soils and sediment layers (within an aquifer).
Water table: The depth of the groundwater in an aquifer
Permeability: A sediment with high permeability (sand) allows water to flow through it at a faster rate than a sediment with low permeability (clay).
Prior Knowledge
Before this lesson, students:

Understand a watershed is a basin through which water drains down topographic highs to the lowest area (the Yakima River).


Have a basic understanding of the water cycle – precipitation, evaporation, and runoff. Students may know that some precipitation soaks into the ground.

Have a temporal understanding of water level changes throughout the seasons.

Understand that irrigation/local agriculture relies on our watershed.
Pre-investigation Assessment (attached) – 5 minutes
Safety
 Do don’t drink the water or rub into your eyes

Disposal: Dump gravel and water from student-built groundwater models into a bucket, clean up plastic cups and reuse for future projects. “Pump” excess dye out of the groundwater model wells with the eye droppers (pollution remediation) to make it easier to clean up later.
Engage (5-10 min):
To engage students, they will view a video of a freshwater spring where groundwater is bubbling out of the ground. I will also show them pictures of springs in arid Mono County, California, where all the land around lacks vegetation, except where the spring exists.
Possible focus questions: (Also might use those questions listed in the pre-assesment)
Where do springs come from?
How does water bubble out of the ground in an arid region?
What happens to precipitation?
What does water do after it soaks into the ground? Where does it travel?
Where does our faucet water come from?
Explore (~15 min)
Tell students to use the materials given to build an aquifer . Explain to them that the plastic cup represents impermeable bedrock and the sediment (the gravel or sand) will be deposited on top of it (placed in the cup). Students should also add grass and leaves to the top of the sediment to represent the surface. When students have finished their aquifers, tell them to add precipitation (blue dyed water) to the surface and observe water travel through the aquifer. Next, they will “drill a hole” into the aquifer by inserting the soap pump into the gravel. Tell the students to pump water out of their aquifer and observe what happens to the water table.
Explain (5 min)
Let’s discuss and share what you observed in your aquifer.

Leading questions:
Is the gravel in the upper part of the cup wet? Why?
What fills the space between the gravel in the upper part of the cup?
What fills the space between the gravel in the lower part of the cup?
If this were a model of an aquifer in Ellensburg, what would we call the water at the bottom of the cup?
Extend/Elaborate with more complicated, pre-built groundwater/aquifer models (45 min)
Now that students have built and explored their own aquifer models, they can expand their knowledge of groundwater to a more complicated model that better resembles our watershed and aquifer. The surface water features and wells will be relabeled to match local bodies of water. This part of the 5E lesson will have a more structured procedure than Day 1.
SEE ATTACHED WORKSEETS FOR GROUNDWATER MODEL LESSON
Evaluate (5 min)
(see attached post-investigation assessment) The evaluation will be a post-quiz similar to the first, but with more questions requiring students to make a connection between the models and the real world. The post-quiz will also ask students to list the similarities and differences between the aquifer model and our aquifer in Ellensburg.
Teacher Background Info
Environmental companies and scientists use computer-based groundwater models, well-logs, and water quality data to understand how contaminated water moves through an aquifer and to map the plume of contamination. In this lesson, students watch a plume of contamination (the red dye) move through the aquifer and affect nearby wells.
In the past, groundwater and surface water were managed separately, as was contamination in each. Today, there is strong evidence that groundwater and surface water interact – for example, as groundwater is pumped through wells, it lowers nearby surface water in streams; and, surface water infiltration recharges the aquifer below.
Therefore, any pollutants carried by surface water have the potential to infiltrate into groundwater (our drinking water) and vice versa. Students use the red dye to contaminate a surface body of water and find that water travels into the aquifer to nearby wells.
In 2009, the city of Ellensburg Washington added a stormwater management fee to water utility bills to raise money for a city stormwater program. Ellensburg needs to implement a stormwater management program to comply with the Pollutant Discharge

Elimination System (NPDES II) phase of the Federal Clean Water Act. One of the benefits to managing stormwater runoff is cleaner groundwater and drinking water.
References:
Winter, T.C., Harvey, J.W., Franke, O.L., and Alley, W.M., 1998, Ground Water and
Surface Water A Single Resource: U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1139, 87 p. http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/circ1139/pdf/circ1139.pdf
City of Ellensburg Public Works Department TTJune 2009 Stormwater questions and answers www.ci.
ellensburg .wa.us/forms/Works/storm water %20faqs.pdf
City of Ellensburg Public Works Department TTSept2008 Stormwater management ordinance www.ci.
ellensburg .wa.us/.../TTSept2008%20%20Storm water %20Management%20Ordi nance.pdf
Resources
Groundwater model lesson: http://www.ic.arizona.edu/ic/hwr201/Act_6_GroundWater_Lab_1.pdf
Create a simple groundwater model: http://www.gem.msu.edu/gw/lessons/gwmodel2.html

Pre-investigation assessment
1.
Where does precipitation (rain/snow) travel when it contacts the ground?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2.
Does the ground soak up any precipitation? (circle yes or no)
YES NO
3.
If you answered “yes” to question #2, , what does the water do after it soaks into the ground? If you answered “no,” what happens to the precipitation instead?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4.
Where does the water from our faucets at home directly source from? (circle one answer below) a. nearby streams b. Pacific Ocean c. the ground d. lakes
5.
What happens to the water we pour down sewers and our kitchen sinks?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Part 1 - Permeability
Farmer
Dan’s
Pond
Yakima
River
Ellensburg Aquifer
Clay layer
1.
Take your ruler and measure the distance (in centimeters) between well 2 and 5 on the groundwater model. Record your data in the table below.
2.
START the stop watch as soon as you carefully place two drops of red dye in well
2.
3.
STOP the stopwatch as soon as the red water reaches well 5.
4.
Repeat steps 1-3 for wells 1 and 6; 4 and 5.
Wells Distance between two wells
(measured in centimeters)
Time it took for the red water to travel from one well to the next
Speed of water travel through the aquifer
(distance divided by time)
2 and 5
1 and
4 and 5

Questions:
1. Name the sediment layers the water traveled through in the space below:
2. What sediment did the water travel through the fastest?
3. If someone poured pollution down a well or had a leaky pollution tank underground, what would happen to the pollution? Draw a picture showing a well and the travel path of the pollution in the space below.
Part 2 – Pollution
Farmer Dan has a large hayfield in Kittitas Valley that he regularly sprays with mineral fertilizers. He knows that some of the minerals in his fertilizers runoff his field to his pond and filter into the groundwater, but he is afraid that his crops won’t grow if he stops fertilizing. If Farmer Dan’s doesn’t grow hay, he doesn’t get paid.
Last Saturday, Farmer Dan noticed realized his hayfield was not as tall as it was last year, so he decided to spray more fertilizer on it than normal. Later that day, a rainstorm hit
Kittitas Valley and washed the fertilizer off the field into the pond.
Procedure:
1. Add a few drops of red dye (fertilizer) to Farmer
Dan’s pond.
Hay field

After the rainstorm, the sun came out and you decide you want to make lemonade for your neighbor, Farmer Dan. You turn on your kitchen faucet and start to pump groundwater from your well.
Procedure:
2.
Place your dropper into well number 4 and try to suck up the water.
Questions:
1.
Do you still want to make lemonade for Farmer Dan? Would you drink the lemonade? Why or why not?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

Post-investigation assessment
1.
Earlier, you built a model aquifer using a gravel and cup. List some ways your model aquifer is different than the Ellensburg Aquifer.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
2.
Why does groundwater travel through some sediment faster than other sediments?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3.
Let’s say a factory 1,000 meters (1 kilometer) away from your house releases pollutants into the groundwater. If it takes 10,800 seconds (3 hours) for the pollution to reach your house what was the velocity (in meters per second) of the pollution through the aquifer? Show your work in the space below…
4.
Farmer Dan wants to reduce the pollution he puts into the groundwater. What advice would you give to Farmer Dan?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Author: Sarah Nagorsen, Yakima WATERS Project, CWU, 2009-2010