Land Use Lesson 8 : Investigating Land Use, Water, and Air Relationships
Enhancements
1. Exploring Water and Air Quality in Depth.
If time permits, you may want to have students do Internet research to find best management practices for forest, urban, and agricultural land uses and determine if any of these practices could be used to improve water and air quality in the land shown on the poster. The web site Land Use Effects on Water Quality (http://www.iwr.msu.edu/edmodule/water/luwhome.htm) could be especially helpful. The list of web sites provided by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality at http://www.michigan. gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3307_3580-105016--,00. html may also be useful
2. Investigating Smart Growth. Students can investigate the principles of smart growth at the web site of Smart Growth Online at http://www.smartgrowth.org/about/principles/default.asp. Students could create a mural or poster similar to the poster used in the lesson to illustrate the principles of Smart Growth. Note that the Michigan Land Use Leadership Council developed several full-page newspaper ads and a brochure on land use (http://www.michiganlanduse.org/), all of which could be used as models for student work.
3. Visit from an environmental journalist. Invite a reporter who covers environmental issues for your local newspaper or television to visit your classroom. The reporter could discuss local environmental problems and their relationship to land use. The reporter might also talk about the background needed to write about the environment and the investigative techniques used. If you do not have such a journalist in your area, you might contact the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University (http://www.ej.msu.edu/) for information and contacts related to environmental journalism.
Extensions
1. Dragonfly Pond. In this lesson from the curriculum This Land Is Your Land: Lesson Plans for Land Use (United Growth for Kent county and the Michigan State University Extension), students create a collage (design a plan) of human land use activities around an image of a pond. They evaluate the effects of different kinds of land use on wetland habitats and discuss and evaluate lifestyle changes to minimize damaging effects on habitats. This lesson is available from http://www.msue.msu.edu/portal/default.cfm?pageset_id=27672&page_id=158096&msue_portal_id=25643.
2. Investigating Historic Changes in Land Use.
While population growth and new technologies may have hastened changes in land use and heightened their effects on the environment, land use change is not a new phenomenon. The Copper Rush of the 1840s is an example of a historic event that resulted in changes in how land was used. A short history of Michigan’s copper industry is available at http://www.exploringthenorth.com/cophistory/cophist.html.
Give students the story The Copper Rush: A Story of Changing Land Use and allow time for students to read or read it aloud as a class. Discuss the following questions with the class:
What prompted the changes in land use in this story? [The “rush” of miners seeking mineral wealth in the Keweenaw Peninsula.]
How did the use of land in the peninsula change? [Where the land was forested, used by the Chippewa for hunting and fishing, it became a settled mining community.]
What were the benefits of the change in land use? [People made money from the sale of copper or from sale of products and services to miners. Copper was available for a variety of uses.]
People in the nineteenth century did not worry a great deal about the quality of the air and water. However, air and water quality did vary from place to place. How might the change in land use in this story have affected air and water quality? [More people and primitive sanitation facilities likely meant more human waste finding its way into the water system. Because water was used in the stamping and crushing mill, there was probably considerable copper in the water. Air quality may have been affected by burning of various fuels for heat and cooking.]
How are the events in the story similar to or different from today’s changes in land use that we have been studying? [Answers will vary.]
In 2002, the magazine Michigan History for Kids devoted an issue to iron mining. Examining this issue can help students deepen their understanding of mining’s impact on land use. A link to this issue of the magazine can be found at http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/KidsInfoBits?vrsn=127&locID=lom_accessmich&failover=0&sgcmd=MAIN&srchtp=basic&c=2&sub=%2522Iron+Mining%2522&ste=35&tbst=tbasic&tab=2&txb=Iron+Mining&docNum=A163546587&bConts=2
3. Brownfields and Greenfields. Learning about brownfields (out-of-use sites previously used for industrial or commercial activity) and greenfields (undeveloped open lands) can extend students’ understanding of the relationship between land use, water quality, and air quality. A one-period extension lesson on this topic is provided at the end of Lesson 8. In this lesson, students examine photographs of brownfields and greenfields, and residential and commercial land uses and discuss the information shown. They identify areas where the photos might have been taken and discuss the implications of brownfield redevelopment and greenfield development.