Down the Drain
Short Description
Do you know how much water you use every day? Would you be surprised to learn that the average American uses between 80-100 gallons of water per day? Do you think people inother parts of the world use more or less water than Americans? Well, this collaborative project will help you find the answers to these questions.
Subject
- Mathematics - Arithmetic & Measurement
- Environmental Science
- Geography
Technology Needed
One computer with Internet access
Time Commitment
Will vary depending on the grade level and student's experience. The project requires students to keep track of their water usage for one week.
Registration Information
No registration is required. Simply go to the project web site, read the project instructions, and submit your data.
Registration Deadline
No registration is required
Full Project Description
This project will allow students to share information about water usage with other students from around the country and the world. Based on data collected by their household members and their classmates, students will determine the average amount of water used by one person in a day. They will compare this to the average amount of water used per person per day in other parts of the world.
By participating in this project students will also learn how to conduct a research experiment using the Scientific Method. Students will develop hypotheses and predictions about what relationships they will find in the data. By analyzing the data, students will confirm or reject their hypotheses. Additionally, there are optional activities for students to do to learn more about water conservation.
This project has been developed for students in grades 4 to 8 but it is open to anyone who is interested including high school students, teachers, and interested citizens. In this project, students will add, multiply, divide and find averages. In many cases, they will be using decimals. Spreadsheets, which have the appropriate formulas entered in them, are available for downloading. Students are welcome to use these spreadsheets, create their own, or just use the spreadsheets to record their manually calculated results.
The project is run on an ongoing basis; you can participate at any time.
Project Objectives
Students will discover if certain areas or countries use more or less water than Americans and identify ways that water can be conserved. Students will also learn how to conduct a research experiment using the Scientific Method.
Assessment
Student work can be posted on the project web site.
Sponsored by
Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education (CIESE)
Stevens Institute of Technology
Hoboken, New Jersey
