This guide book contains a fully detailed plan for running an investigation of water quality in a local watershed.
This manual is written to work with a GREEN Standard Water Monitoring Kit, which can be purchased online.
Teaching Tips
Positives
It includes a guide for study design, recommendations for types of tests that can be run, detailed instructions for running those different types of tests, and data collection sheets.
Additional Prerequisites
Be sure to consider safety practices if taking students into the field to gather samples.
Covering all exposed skin is a must when collecting samples, and probably a good idea when running tests as well.
Differentiation
Another option would be to piece together the different materials and tests yourself, depending on which investigations you want students to run.
Aquarium stores are good places to find materials for different kinds of water testing (dissolved oxygen, pH, etc.).
Scientist Notes
Safety measures, tools and procedures for all field and laboratory experiment is safe for students to practice. This manual is recommended to teach water quality testing.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS2: Earth's Systems
HS-ESS2-5 Plan and conduct an investigation of the properties of water and its effects on Earth materials and surface processes.
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-3 Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
MS-LS2-4 Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.
