For grades 4-6, the Foundation’s California Water
Story school program offers lessons that integrate
many subject areas (geography, history, science, math and art)
and are designed to help students develop specific skills
(critical thinking, organizing data, predicting, mapping and
graphing).
Complementing this program is the Fountains of
Columbia. Designed for grades 4-6, this video/lesson
plan package teaches students about the importance of water
during California’s Gold Rush. The interdisciplinary lesson plan
booklet, correlated with the new state frameworks for
History/Social Science, Language Arts and Sciences, features
hands-on activities involving world timelines, erosion
experiments and primary source readings, including Mark Twain’s
“Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”
Upper elementary students can learn how water is recycled and
reused in Give Water
a Second Chance – Recycle It. Prepared in
cooperation with the WateReuse Association California Section,
the five student activities include a decoding game about the
parts of the water re-cycle, mazes through a wastewater treatment
plant, on-line explorations of wastewater microbe life cycles,
activities to identify uses for treated wastewater and an
experiment about salts dissolved in water and the challenges for
water recycling.
