Waste Water

PictureWaste Water Treatment Facility, Santa Cruz, CA
When we flush, where does it go?  What about what we pour down the sink?  Maybe you know that the waste travels to a waste water treatment facility, but what actually occurs there? What would happen if we didn't have access to clean water?

Fortunately in the United States we nearly always have access to clean water due to water treatment facilities.  However this is not the case in many countries as treatment facilities do not exist or, even worse, some locations are actually running out of water.  In this unit we will examine the process of treating waste water, potential lack of clean water access, visit a local waste water treatment plant, and examine our own water treatment protocols to help answer these questions.

Unit Question:
What happens when we run out of clean water?

Unit Product

  • Students will create, evaluate, and revise a solution to a complex real-world problem.
  • Students will conduct a laboratory investigation to simulate the impact of filtering wastewater on nutrient cycles and biodiversity.

Unit Skills

  • Skill 1: Asking Questions & Defining Problems
  • ​Skill 2: Modeling nutrient cycling
  • Skill 3: Planning Investigations
  • Skill 4: Carrying out investigations
  • Skill 5: Analyzing Wastewater Lab Data
  • Skill 6: Conclusion to Wastewater Treatment Plant Lab

Unit Content

  • I can analyze the impacts of environmental changes (human impacts) on: cycling of matter, flow of energy (food web), biodiversity 
  • ​I can identify the sequence of nutrients moving through the nitrogen & phosphorous cycles
  • I can design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity by designing a solution to a complex real-world problem. (LS2-7 & ETS1-2)

Additional Resources

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