C

February 27, 2009

As the water filtration activity is one of my favorites in STOMP, I was pleased to see that this group of students really enjoyed it too! We discussed what environmental engineers do, and emphasized the three main areas where contamination occurs in the environment: soil, air, and water. The filter is a method of cleaning contamination in the water, and the design challenge that it brings is deciding how to order the filtering materials to best filter the water. Seeing the dirty water that they need to filter is exciting for the students I think. The lego “turbidity meter” was used on the students’ samples of water, which is good addition to lesson because it attempts to quantify the degree to which the water has been cleaned. The difficulty with the turbidity meter is that the range from control dirty water to control clean water is only 3 or 4 numbers, but this did not prevent the students from understanding the concept. Good lesson today!