Why Water?

The 8th grade will be beginning the year with a unit on water, and we'll be studying water for about two months! That seems like a long time to learn about something so simple! But there is more to water than meets the eye. In fact, the quest to solve the world's water problems is one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century.

You probably remember learning about the water cycle. (If not, here is a quick review.) There is never any new water made on Earth; the same water just loops around and is "recycled" over and over again. This means that water is a finite resource, meaning there is a limited amount of it that is available for us to use. So, it is very important that we take care of the water we have!

"But wait, Ms. Ewing," you may be saying. "When I look at a map, it seems like the whole world is covered with water!" You're right, of course. About 70% of our planet is covered with beautiful water. But 97.5% of it is salt water! We can't drink that! So only 2.5% of the Earth's water is even freshwater, and most of that small amount is frozen in the icecaps at the North Pole and the South Pole. And some of it is trapped as moisture in the soil under our feet, so we can't drink that either. At the end of the day, less than 1% of the water on Earth is available for us to drink. No wonder so many places on Earth are threatened because they don't have enough water.

This is a problem, because we all need water to live! When we don't take care of the water we have, people's lives are at risk. In previous centuries, people didn't know what to do to keep water clean, and in Chicago and other cities many people died from cholera and other diseases spread by unclean water. Now, we have the knowledge and the technology, and yet people all over the world are still sick dying because they can't get safe water. One out of five people in the world population lacks clean water, and 80% of diseases in developing nations comes from unsafe water, killing over 25,000 people every day. Children are especially at risk, because their bodies are still growing and can be vulnerable to these diseases. Click here to see how children in other nations are affected by this issue. Of course, in addition to needing water to drink (a lot-- about 16,000 gallons in your lifetime), we also need it to grow our food and produce goods in our factories. The last time you turned on a faucet, did you ever imagine how important that simple, familiar substance is?

Still want to know more? For a crash course on water, how it works, and why it's so important, visit the U.S. Geological Survey's water information page.

Or, if you think you're a water expert, take this quiz and see how much you really know....

Homework for the Week of 9-8-09

213:
Wednesday: Parent letter signed, lab safety contract signed, scientific method practice worksheet.
Thursday: Anti-venom article-- read and respond to questions on a separate sheet of paper.
Friday: Lab safety rule drawing (choose one and illustrate it).

215:
Tuesday: Parent letter signed, lab safety contract signed, scientific method practice worksheet.
Wednesday: Anti-venom article-- read and respond to questions on a separate sheet of paper.
Friday: Lab safety rule drawing (choose one and illustrate it).

223:
Wednesday: Read "Who was Isaac Newton?" and answer questions. Parent contact letter and lab safety contract signed.
Thursday: Read article: "Finding a Scapegoat When Epidemics Strike" and respond to questions.
Friday: "Back to Newton's Cradle" worksheet.

225:
Tuesday: Read "Who was Isaac Newton?" and answer questions. Parent contact letter and lab safety contract signed.
Wednesday: Read article: "Finding a Scapegoat When Epidemics Strike" and respond to questions.
Thursday: "Back to Newton's Cradle" worksheet.

8A:
Tuesday: Read "Why Water?" blog post and post a comment in response. Your response must:

• be a paragraph of at least 8 sentences
• reference at least two facts from the post or one of the links
• mention something you found interesting from one of the links
• include a personal opinion you feel in response to the post or one of the links, or a classmate's post
• have correct grammar and spelling
• be signed with your first name only

Your comment must be posted by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, 9-15 for you to receive credit. Late posts or posts with inappropriate content will receive a zero.

Wednesday: Read article, "Bottled Water Boom Appears Tapped Out" and answer questions. Blog post comment due next class period! (See above.)


8B:
Thursday: Read "Why Water?" blog post and post a comment in response. Your response must:

• be a paragraph of at least 8 sentences
• reference at least two facts from the post or one of the links
• mention something you found interesting from one of the links
• include a personal opinion you feel in response to the post or one of the links, or a classmate's post
• have correct grammar and spelling
• be signed with your first name only

Your comment must be posted by 5 p.m. on Thursday, 9-17 for you to receive credit. Late posts or posts with inappropriate content will receive a zero.

Friday: Read article, "Bottled Water Boom Appears Tapped Out" and answer questions. Blog post comment due next class period! (See above.)

Science Fair Ideas...?

Yes, I know... it's summer. Hearing the words "science fair" probably makes your head hurt. But the more time you spend thinking about the science fair in advance, the easier it will be-- and the more fun you will have.

Often, students choose a project they find in a science fair book or on the internet. This may seem like the easy way out at first, but the problem is, it's usually much less interesting-- and sometimes much more difficult and confusing-- than if you had come up with a project yourself. Why copy something you find online when there are interesting science questions all around?

Try this: come up with a list of things you find interesting. These can be things you learn about in school, things you do for fun, things you like to watch on TV-- anything, really. Here's a list of some things that interest me, as an example:

• animals
• cooking and food
• music
• books
• basketball

Now, all you have to do is start paying attention. I'm serious. If you look closely, science questions are all around us! If you care about something, don't you want to know how it works? Here are some questions that would make great science fair projects, based on my interests:

• animals-- Do goldfish remember you, or is it true that they have a 4-second memory?
• cooking and food-- Does adding salt to water really make it boil faster?
• music-- Does listening to music make doing homework easier or harder?
• books-- Do pictures help you remember things from textbooks?
• basketball-- Which brand of ball bouncest highest? (I had a student do this one!)

Have a topic you want to do, but you need help coming up with a question? Or maybe you think you have a good idea for an experiment, and you want to know what to do next? Ask me for help!