Hazardous+Waste+Lesson+Plan

__**Objective:**__ To show students what could happen to ground water if hazardous waste were not regulated.
 * Classroom Activity: Middle School**
 * (Hazardous) Waste Not**

__**Activity Description:**__ Students will create an aquifer and demonstrate how hazardous waste could seep into ground water.

__**Materials Needed:**__ • Clear plastic cup for each student • //What’s going on Underground// diagram for each student? • Molding clay (enough for each student to have a½-inch by ½-inch square) • One-quart container filled with sand • Container of small pebbles (enough for a ½ cup for each student) • Bucket of water and ladle • Red food coloring

__**Key Vocabulary Words:**__ · Aquifer · Hazardous waste · Byproduct · Regulation · Ground water · Saturated zone · Surface water · Porous · Water table


 * __Duration__:** 1 hour

__**Activity**__
 * Step 1:** Discuss with the class how ground water is a major source of drinking water for as much as half of the U.S. population. Provide each student with the //What’s Going// //on Underground// diagram and discuss how ground water forms, exists, and can be extracted. Review the vocabulary words and definitions provided on the diagram. Explain that it would be very easy to contaminate ground water if hazardous waste were simply dumped on the ground and absorbed by the soil. Define and discuss hazardous waste.


 * Step 2:** Place the containers of pebbles, sand, and bucket of water with the ladle on a table in the classroom where each student can access them.

Ask the students to dump the pebbles on their desk and keep them there temporarily.
 * Step 3:** Pass out a plastic cup to each student. Ask the students to fill their cups half full of small pebbles. In addition, give each student a ½-inch by ½-inch piece of the molding clay.


 * Step 4:** Ask each student to go to the sand container and scoop enough so that there is about 1/4-inch on the bottom of their cups. After they add the sand, ask them to ladle just enough water into the cup so that it is absorbed by the sand. Discuss how the water is still in the cup, but that it is being stored in the “ground.”


 * Step 5:** Have each student flatten their clay in the shape of the cup bottom and then place it over the sand. Fasten the clay to one side of the cup, but leave an opening on the other side.


 * Step 6:** Ask each student to place their pile of pebbles into the cup, on top of the clay. They can place the pebbles so that they lay flat or form hills and valleys.

Water, depending on how much water they added to their cups. Discuss how both surface and ground water can be sources of drinking water and that some parts of the ground are more porous than others (e.g., water slips more easily through the pebbles than the clay).
 * Step 7:** Ask the students to add a ladle full of water to their “aquifers.” Students that formed hills and valleys with their pebbles will see that they have surface water in addition to ground


 * Step 8:** Tell the students to imagine that there is a factory that produces “widgets” near their aquifer. In the course of producing widgets, the factory produces a hazardous waste byproduct. Ask students to imagine that hazardous waste regulations do not exist and that the factory is allowed to dump its hazardous waste on the ground outside, which is also an aquifer.


 * Step 9:** Pass the food coloring around the room so that each student can add a few drops to their aquifers. Explain that the food coloring represents hazardous waste that is being dumped illegally. Ask the students to watch the path of the food coloring.


 * Step 10:** Discuss how easy it is to pollute and contaminate the ground water. Explain that this is why the government has created very detailed laws about how companies must deal with their hazardous waste.

__**Assessment**__ 1. Ask students to explain how activities above the ground can affect the water underground. 2. Have students tell you why hazardous waste is regulated.

__**Enrichment**__ 1. Draw a map of your community or region including all the waterways. Add a local source of potential hazardous waste pollution to the map and trace the path its waste would take if it were not regulated. (See the sidebar for examples of local hazardous waste generators.) Discuss how streams and creeks feed into larger bodies of water and how pollution at a small, local stream can result in pollution in rivers, lakes, bays, and/or oceans. This activity can be used to teach or review the concept of “bird’s-eye” view, the different types of maps, and the use of legends and symbols.

2. Using paper maché or modeling clay and water-based paints, develop a relief map of the community or region including all waterways. To physically show how hazardous waste can travel through all waterways, put a few drops of food coloring on one end of the map. Tilt the structure, if necessary, and watch the food coloring travel.

3. Elicit what would happen to our waterways if they became contaminated by hazardous waste. How would people and ecosystems be affected?

Lesson Plans adapted from: []