Lesson Plan Template

Name:

Grade 9-10 Topic Water Sample Testing

Date Allotted Time 2 - 80 min classes

STAGE 1: Desired Results

Cite sources used to develop this plan:

Rationale: How does this lesson fit in with the unit being studied? How does this lesson prepare for future
learning? How does this lesson relate to the students’ real life?
The purpose of this lesson is to provide students with an alternative to the typical classroom
environment. Students will be given an opportunity to retrieve water samples from sources located
within walking distance of the school and test for contaminants.

Prior Learning: What previous learnings do students need to know to be able to be successful in the lesson?
How does this lesson extend prior learnings? What connections if any can be made to First Nations Culture and
ways of knowing?
Students will require previous knowledge of the water cycle and sources of contaminants.

Curriculum Connections: What Big Ideas (Understand,) Core and Curricular Competencies (Do), Content
Standards (Know) does this lesson develop? What connections if any can be made to First People’s principles
and ways of knowing?

Understand
Big Ideas:
• The biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere are interconnected, as matter cycles
and energy flows through them.

Essential or Guiding Questions: What in our environment can be a contaminant of water sources?

Do
Core Competency: Creative Thinking, Personal & Social
Curricular Competencies:
Questioning and predicting
 • Demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal
interest
• Make observations aimed at identifying their own questions, including increasingly complex ones,
about the natural world
• Formulate multiple hypotheses and predict multiple outcomes
Planning and conducting
• Collaboratively and individually plan, select, and use appropriate investigation methods, including
field work and lab experiments, to collect reliable data (qualitative and quantitative)
• Assess risks and address ethical, cultural and/or environmental issues associated with their
proposed methods and those of others
• Select and use appropriate equipment, including digital technologies, to systematically and
accurately collect and record data
• Ensure that safety and ethical guidelines are followed in their investigations
Processing and analyzing data and information
• Experience and interpret the local environment
• Apply First Peoples perspectives and knowledge, other ways of knowing, and local knowledge as
sources of information
• Seek and analyze patterns, trends, and connections in data, including describing relationships
between variables (dependent and independent) and identifying inconsistencies
• Use knowledge of scientific concepts to draw conclusions that are consistent with evidence
• Analyze cause-and-effect relationships
Evaluating
• Evaluate their methods and experimental conditions, including identifying sources of error or
uncertainty, confounding variables, and possible alternative explanations and conclusions
• Exercise a healthy, informed skepticism, and use scientific knowledge and findings to form their
own investigations and to evaluate claims in secondary sources
• Consider social, ethical, and environmental implications of the findings from their own and others’
investigations
• Critically analyze the validity of information in secondary sources and evaluate the approaches
used to solve problems
Applying and innovating
• Contribute to finding solutions to problems at a local and/or global level through inquiry
Communicating
• Formulate physical or mental theoretical models to describe a phenomenon
• Communicate scientific ideas, claims, information, and perhaps a suggested course of action, for a
specific purpose and audience, constructing evidence-based arguments and using appropriate
scientific language, conventions, and representations
• Express and reflect on a variety of experiences, perspectives, and worldviews through place

Know
Content Standards:
• effects of solar radiation on the cycling of matter and energy

STAGE 2: Assessment Plan

 Learning Intention(s):
What will students learn?
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to…
§ Students will analyze water samples for contaminants.
§ Students will use the Internet or other sources to identify sources of
water contamination.
§ Students will relate contaminants to local sources

Evidence of Learning: What tools will you use - assignment, presentation, quiz, project, discussion,
How will students show their group interaction, etc.?
learning? • Group discussion and interaction

Criteria: Indicators of success are…

What criteria will help • Students are able to verbally express the relationships found in the
students know how to be results table
successful?

STAGE 3: Learning Plan

Resources, Material and Preparation: What resources, materials and preparation are required?

• Basic testing equipment: Commercially available water quality testing kit

• Thermometer

If commercial testing equipment is not available, substitutions or low-tech options can be used:
• Use litmus paper to test for alkalinity.
• Smell the water to test for aromatic hydrocarbons.
• Observe the water for turbidity.
• Allow the water to evaporate for calcium carbonate and salt deposits.
• Observe water for oil.
• Observe water for foaming.

Lesson Development

Connect (Hook):
How will you introduce this lesson in a manner that engages students and activates their thinking (pose
questions, build background knowledge, capture interest, make connections, share learning intention)?
Teacher will Students will Management Pacing
Take students outside of the Students will be asked to
classroom to a natural setting remain quiet while walking
close to or within school through the halls to exit the
grounds that allows for school 10 Min
multiple water samples to be
collected

Body:
Process (activities):
How will students interact with new ideas, build understanding, acquire and practice knowledge, skills
and/or attitudes? How will you build in any guided practice? How will you embed assessment activities?
Transformation (application):
How will students apply and/or practice learning, incorporate personalized representation of learning,
and/or provide “real life” applications?
Management strategies:
What decisions will you make regarding groupings, passing out and collecting in materials, questioning,
monitoring progress, safety, clean up, getting student attention, etc?
Diversity:
How will you meet the needs of diverse learners?
Teacher will Student will Management Considerations Pacing
Assemble students into groups Search for sources of water Groups can be pre-made to
of 3 and collect 3 samples. Label avoid potential management
samples. issues 25 min
Reconvene with students to Participate in class discussion Make clear that it must be
discuss the water cycle and (Outside) appropriate and each person
make hypotheses about where should have something
their water samples came different 25 min
from.
Return to Classroom

10 min
Lesson 2

Direct Students through water Record their findings on the

sample testing. data table

45 min
Lead group discussion about
the results found in the data
table.
Closure: (2 – 5 min)
How will you solidify the learning that has taken place and deepen the learning process?
Teacher will
Discuss conclusions
Answer questions:
1. Are the same
contaminants in every
sample?
2. What are possible sources
of these contaminants?
3. Are all of these sources
human made, or are
some natural sources of
contamination? (some
are natural, for example,
groundwater infiltrating
through and dissolving
rock, sulfuric acids in
volcanic regions)
4. Do these sources of
contamination come from
very localized sources or
from larger sources?
Introduce concepts of
point source and non-
point sources of
contamination.
25 min
Students will Management Pacing
5 min