Water - Planning for the Future

OVERVIEW: The student will understand that water resources include both surface water and ground water. The student will investigate the increases (or decreases) for water user groups - irrigation, municipal, manufacturing, steam electric power generation cooling, livestock, and mining. The student will use percentage change during the investigation. Graphs will be used by the student to relate the data as part of a written report.Environmental Science Institut

How Texas is Planning to Manage its Water

OVERVIEW: The student will research water management strategies in Texas to meet the projected demand for water in the year 2050. The student will interpret graphs and tables and then discuss the data as part of a written report.Environmental Science Institut

Just What IS a Watershed?

OVERVIEW: The student will observe the elements of a local watershed and begin to develop an appreciation for the need to protect watersheds as valuable resources. The student will observe the interdependence of a variety of factors on a watershed. These factors include local geology, the ecology of the watershed, and the effect of man’s influence.Environmental Science Institut

Let's Settle It

OVERVIEW: All living things need water to be able to survive. One of the main concerns of all settlers to a new area was a consistent water supply. By mapping the early Spanish and American settlements, the students will discover that a water supply was a determining factor in the settlement’s location. This activity is to be used in addition to the classroom lesson on the settlement of Texas.Environmental Science Institut

What Makes Up a Heatlthy Watershed?

OVERVIEW: The student will observe the elements of a local watershed and develop an appreciation for the need to protect watersheds as valuable water resources. The student will observe the interdependence of a variety of factors on a watershed. These factors include local geology, the ecology of the watershed, and the effect of man’s influence.Environmental Science Institut

Solving a 3.2-Million-Year-Old Mystery: How Lucy Died

Since its discovery in 1974, Lucy, a 3.2-million-year-old specimen of Australopithecus afarensis - or “southern ape of Afar” has provided invaluable information about human evolution. However, Lucy’s death has always remained a mystery. Over forty years after its discovery, Dr. Kappelman shares the remarkable story of how he studied Lucy’s bones along with his insights into how Lucy died, cracking one of the coldest cases in history. What do Lucy’s remains tell us about her life and death?Environmental Science Institut

Aquifer Model

OVERVIEW: The water that we use every day in Texas come from one of two sources: surface or ground water. Surface water is from rivers and lakes. Ground water flows or is pumped from below the surface. An underground source is called an aquifer.Environmental Science Institut

The Ozone Layer, CFCs and Global Warming

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: We are familiar with the most common form of oxygen, the form that we all breathe. It is made up of two oxygen atoms (O2). Ozone is made up of three oxygen atoms (O3) and can be beneficial or harmful, depending on where it is found in the atmosphere. In the stratosphere, ozone protects us from ultraviolet radiation, so it is beneficial to human health. On the other hand, ground-level ozone is a pollutant, and as we learned in Lesson 1, is harmful to human health. Remember, the ozone chemical is the same, but where it is located determines if it is beneficial or a pollutant.Environmental Science Institut

Water in the Texas Coastal Basin

OVERVIEW: The student will study a Texas coastal basin. The student will understand that water resources include surface water and groundwater, even in coastal basins. The student will further understand the importance of maintaining Texas estuaries. The student will map and graph information and write a short report.Environmental Science Institut

Refining Program Capacity to Enhance and Protect Wetland Resources in Virginia: 2020 Final Report to EPA (#BG983925-06-0)

Virginia continues to make significant progress in the development of a comprehensive wetland regulatory program and continued refinement of our wetland monitoring and assessment tools for use in management decision-making and integration within our water quality programs. This project focused on development of strategies to integrate management of wetlands across the landscape and among different jurisdictions sharing the same waterways. This project will increase the potential for protection and restoration of wetlands, but also include the added value of potentially improving impaired waters in Virginia. Project activities specifically addressed all of the priority elements in Virginia’s approved Wetlands Program Plan (2015-2020). The project extended the current online Virginia Wetlands Condition Assessment Tool (WetCAT) to include both tidal and nontidal wetlands, as well as nontidal wetlands vulnerable to changing participation patterns. The project established coordinated bi-State wetland management by providing comprehensive watershed level maps of wetlands in waterways shared by both Virginia and North Carolina. It provided a statewide floristic quality assessment tool for better analysis of wetlands in the field. Finally, the project provided continued landuse/wetland calibration for wetland condition models and developed strategies to increase sampling accuracy while reducing sampling costs. Finally, existing outreach strategies continued targeting local government decision makers and the public