Water Filtration

Overview

Students learn why clean water matters, identify sources of water pollution, and test water filtration. The lesson opens with an interactive Curipod presentation on water, pollution, and clean water. Students then time how long granular activated carbon takes to remove different amounts of food color from water, first with pellets and then with crushed carbon, record the results in a table, and graph them. Groups compare results and present slides explaining the differences. In the final phase, students research, sketch, build, and test a filter using up to three types of media plus coffee filters, rate the clarity of the filtered water, and improve their design.

Lesson Objectives

• Understand the importance of clean water.
• Identify sources of water pollution
• Explore ways to conserve and protect clean water sources.
• Use granular activated carbon to determine the effectiveness of removing food color from water samples.
• Use collected data to create graphs to aid in data interpretation.
• Design and test their own water filter using the engineering design process