Third Graders Design Water Filters in Honor of Earth Day

Thursday’s Earth Day activities connected with our Environment and Life science lessons. The third graders worked on the Designing Water Filters unit. This is part of our Engineering is Elementary program. First, students read the book Saving Salila’s Turtle. They were asked to identify environmental issues in the story and then considered engineering as a way of solving these problems. During classroom discussions and through their own research, students learned about Environmental Engineers and the important role they play. The interactive learning activities followed. Students worked in teams to brainstorm different ways to clean “contaminated” water. They explored the properties of  different filter materials and then tested them out. They documented their findings and will use this information to help them with their designs.