Students will be able to:

1. Define and apply the following terms: watershed, sub-watershed, headwaters, mouth, drainage divide, streambanks, runoff, floodplain, meander, streamflow/ stream discharge, main channel, and tributary.

2. Locate their local watershed and identify the Great Lake into which it flows.

3. Describe how the size of a watershed and the local weather affect the quantity of water in a stream, river, or lake.

Michigan Grade Level Content

Expectations

Science Grades 6-7:

• Identify the living (biotic) and nonliving (abiotic) components of an ecosystem. L.EC.06.31

• Describe the origins of pollution in the atmosphere, geosphere, and hydrosphere and how pollution impacts habitats, climatic change, threatens or endangers species. E.ES.07.42

• Analyze the flow of water between components of a watershed, including surface features and groundwater. E.ES.07.82

Social Studies 6-8:

• Describe the environmental effects of human action on the atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere. 6- G5.1.1, 7-G5.1.1

• Describe how variations in technology affect human modifications of the landscape. 7- G5.1.2

• Identify the ways in which human-induced changes in the physical environment in one place can cause changes in other places 7- G5.1.3

• Describe the effects that a change in the physical environment could have on human activities and the choices people would have to make in adjusting to the change. 7- G5.2.1

HS Earth Science:

• Explain how the impact of human activities on the environment can be understood through the analysis of interactions between the four major Earth systems. E2.4B

• Explain how physical and chemical weathering leads to erosion and the formation of soils and sediments. E3.p1B

• Describe that the water cycle includes evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, surface runoff, groundwater, and absorption E4.p1A

• Analyze the flow of water within a watershed, including surface features and groundwater. E4.p1B

• Describe the river and stream types, features, and processes as they occur naturally and as they are impacted by land use decisions. E4.p1C

• Explain the types, process, and beneficial functions of wetlands. E4.p1D

• Compare and contrast surface water systems and groundwater in regard to their relative sizes as Earth’s freshwater reservoirs and the dynamics of water movement E4.1A

• Explain how water quality in both groundwater and surface systems is impacted by land use decisions. E4.1C