Name____________________
Date________
Period_____
The Need For Clean Water
In the United States, sipping water, brushing your teeth and taking a shower are all things
we take for granted as harmless, healthy habits. But what if doing any of those things
could make you sick – sick enough to die?
Objectives:
1. Apply your knowledge of the atomic structure of water to design a mobile device to
purify water.
2. Explain how the properties of matter can help to separate the polluted mixture.
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Activity 1: Guided Reading
1. Read “Drinking Water can be Deadly,” and underline the key information.
Drinking Water can be Deadly
For an estimated 800 million people living in the developing world, that fear is a reality
because they do not have ready access to safe, uncontaminated water. About 3.4 million
people die each year from water-related diseases, according to the group Water.org.
About 70 percent of the surface of the Earth is covered by water and 97.5 percent of
that is salt water. Only 2.5 percent is freshwater and of that small amount, more than
two-thirds is frozen in the polar ice caps. The remaining fresh water mostly can be
found in soil moisture or deep in underground rock formations known as aquifers.
Without a well system, it is very difficult to acquire fresh water.
An excerpt from “For many of the world's poor, drinking water can be deadly” by Addie Morfoot, 05/15/13
2. What percentage of earth is freshwater?_________
3. Where is more than two - thirds of fresh water trapped?
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4. Why can it be difficult to obtain fresh water?
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Activity 2: Water Filtration Research
A water filter removes impurities such as undesirable chemicals, biological contaminants,
and suspended solids from contaminated water. The goal is to produce water fit for
consumption. There are several methods currently used to purify water including barriers,
UV light, chemical removal and boiling.
5. List at least three properties of water that were discussed earlier in this class.
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6. Circle the filter you think will work the best to remove all the pollutants.
1)
2)
3)
4)
7. In the space provided below, write a minimum of one paragraph justifying why the
filter method you selected will function the best. Consider how the chemical
composition of water will affect the efficiency of your filter.
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Activity 3: Living Without Clean Water
Petronella Muelula is one of the 354 million people living in Africa without access to clean drinking
water. Petronella is the mother of eight children and lives in rural Zambia – a landlocked country
on the continent. Although Petronella and her family live surrounded by water on an island in the
middle of Lake Bangweulu, her children risk getting sick every time they drink the lake’s water.
The lake is contaminated, partly because it is being used as a dump for raw sewage. The polluted
water not only causes illness, but it also leads to an inability to grow food, build houses and
function in everyday life, which contributes to poverty.
Petronella walks more than 2 miles each day to collect water for her family. Yet that long trek
brings her no closer to a safe water supply. The water she is collecting is contaminated and could
kill her children just as it kills close to 5,000 children worldwide every day. One of the main risks
of consuming unpurified water is diarrheal disease, which the World Health Organization (WHO)
reports kills 1.5 million children every year. WHO also reports that the disease accounts for 1.5
billion bouts of illness per year in children under age 5 living in developing nations where
sanitation is poor, hygiene is inadequate and the drinking water is unsafe. Can you help
Petronella by designing a portable water filtration device using your understanding of the
chemical composition of water?
An excerpt from “For many of the world's poor, drinking water can be deadly” by Addie Morfoot, 05/15/1 3
8. How many people living in Africa do not have clean water?___________________
9. Why do Petronella and her eight children risk getting sick every time they drink
Lake Bangweulu’s water? ___________________________________________
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10. Besides causing illnesses, why else is polluted water bad? ___________________
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11. How many children each year are thought to have died from illnesses related to
unsafe drinking water? _____________________________________________
12. If you were petronella, what would you do to keep your children safe? __________
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Activity 4: Design Brief
Using the materials listed below you will be responsible for developing a portable water
device that Petronella can use to purify the water from Lake Bangweulu. Petronella is
mainly concerned amount the amount of suspended solids, unwanted chemicals and
biological contaminants found within her current water supply. Your goal is to remove as
many of these pollutants as possible using the materials listed below.
Patronella has made the following design requests for you to consider during your design
process. Please take these concerns into consideration as they will affect your overall
grade.
1. Must use 4 or more of the materials
2. Effectiveness of the filter will be based on water quality (pH) and clarity.
3. Your filter will have 10 minutes to get ½ cup of purified water
4.
You can put water through the filter more than once in the 10 minutes
Materials:
● Gravel
● Cheese Cloth
● Liter Bottles
● Screen
● Sand
● pH paper
● Cotton Ball
● pH scales
● Coffee Filter
● Water Quality - Ammonia, Nitrate,
● Charcoal
Phosphate
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Activ
ity
5:
Possible Designs
1) Three possible designs for a portable water filter.
2) Neatly label all the materials used in your designs.
Design 1:
Design 2:
Design 3:
Final Design:
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Activity 6:Final Design Explanation
Explain how you reached your final design with your group. Justify why you predict that
this water filter will successfully remove most of the water pollutants based on the
chemical and physical properties of water.
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You may not move past this point in the project until
your receive a teacher signature below.
Student Name: __________________________
Date: ______________
Teacher Signature: _______________________
Date: ______________
Activity 7: Construction and Test
Use the time given in class to construct your filter. Please make sure that you address the
concerns mentioned in the design brief. Between each trial you may make changes to your
design to improve its overall performance.
Water Color
PH Level
Sediments
Trial 1
Trail 2
Trail 3
Activity 8: Analysis Question
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1. Which materials helped to make your filter a success? Did your filter perform as
well as expected? Why or why not?
2. Based on how all the filters in the class performed. Explain how you would change
your filter to allow it to perform better. Justify why using the class data
collected.
3. Look back at the story about Petronella. Would the filter you created be enough to
ensure that the water she drank every day was pollutant free? Why or why not?
Use RACE format to respond to this question.
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