Healthy Water Observation. What animal and plant life do you observe along the stream?

Transcription

1 Name: Healthy Water Observation What animal and plant life do you observe along the stream? What human impact do you observe on the stream? Sketch and label what you observe.

2 My partners are: We will be focusing on: Oil Spills Fertilizer Runoff Chemical Pollution Waterborne Disease Target Task: Imagine the stream we observed today had problems with (your pollution focus). How would your observations have been different?

3 Name: Target task, partner 1: Based on your research today, what is (your research focus)? How does it occur?

4 Name: Target task, partner 2: Based on your research today, how does (your research focus) impact animals and humans?

5 Name: Target task, partner 3: Based on your research today, explain what can be done to prevent or fight against (your research focus).

6 What is?

7 How does harm animals and humans?

8 What can people do to prevent or fight against?

9 Name: Water pollution project rubric Check all pieces you see: A paragraph describing the type of pollution A paragraph describing how the pollution impacts animals and humans A paragraph describing how we can work to end the problem An illustration or diagram to go with each paragraph that clearly explains or builds onto what the paragraph is about. A poster with a title, all group members names, all 3 paragraphs, and all 3 illustrations/diagrams Did I learn something new in this presentation? NO YES Did the illustrations or diagrams build onto the paragraphs or helped me better understand them? NO YES

10 Water pollution project rubric Name: Check all pieces you see: A paragraph describing the type of pollution A paragraph describing how the pollution impacts animals and humans A paragraph describing how we can work to end the problem An illustration or diagram to go with each paragraph that clearly explains or builds onto what the paragraph is about. A poster with a title, all group members names, all 3 paragraphs, and all 3 illustrations/diagrams Did I learn something new in this presentation? NO YES Did the illustrations or diagrams build onto the paragraphs or helped me better understand them? NO YES

11 Water Pollution: Oil Spills What are oil spills? People all over the world benefit from the crude oil found under the earth s surface. Some of this oil is used to make gasoline that powers cars, airplanes, and many important machines. Some of the oil is even turned into plastic, which is then used for all kinds of things. Certain places on Earth have large oil deposits, or pools of oil, under the surface. Many of these oil deposits are located under the ocean floor. Oil companies lower large drills into the ocean and drill through the ocean floor until they reach the oil deposit. The companies then attach huge pipes to the drilled hole. Those pipes carry oil from the ocean floor up to the surface. At the surface, the oil is loaded onto ships, which carry the oil all over the world to be turned into gasoline, plastics, and other materials. Sometimes, the long pipes that carry oil from the ocean floor to the surface break or burst. Other times, an oil-carrying ship gets damaged. Whenever there is a problem with an oil-carrying pipe or ship, tons and tons of crude oil are released into the ocean. This is called an oil spill and leads to catastrophic problems for all kinds of wildlife. Effects of oil spills Oil spills are incredibly dangerous to animals that live near the ocean. When oil gets into the fur of sea otters or seals, it causes the fur to clump together. These mammals depend on their fur to stay fluffy to keep them warm in the cold ocean. When their fur becomes soaked in oil, they often get hypothermia, a condition where their body temperatures drop to dangerously cold temperatures. After an oil spill, many otters and seals die of hypothermia before humans can reach them to clean their fur. Many ocean birds rely on their feathers to keep warm, and oil has a similar effect on bird feathers. It causes them to stick together instead of staying fluffy against the bird s body. Like seals and otters, many birds die of hypothermia after an oil spill. In addition, oil sticks to bird feathers and makes them much heavier than they would usually be. This makes some birds unable to fly, leaving them as easy prey for other animals. As birds preen, or use their beak to clean their feathers, they often accidentally eat some of the oil, which causes further

12 problems. Some birds even die of starvation or dehydration because they spend all their time trying to clean their feathers instead of looking for food. Many animals use their sense of smell to locate their babies. Crude oil has a very strong smell, so after an oil spill, many animals can no longer smell their babies. This causes parent animals to leave their babies alone to die. How to fix and prevent oil spills After an oil spill, teams of scientists and veterinarians rush to the scene. As quickly as they can, they collect animals and clean their fur or feathers. If the animals are sick, these scientists and veterinarians nurse the animals back to health. However, many animals are not found in time and die before they get help. Even worse, over half of the animals that do get human help end up dying anyway from the shock and stress of their experience. There are a few different ways to clean up the spill itself. If the spill is near a beach, volunteers will often come and clean oily objects off the beach themselves. Oil companies sometimes use huge vacuums to suck oil off the surface of the water. Other times, they release tiny bacteria into the water that can actually eat the oil. If there is no wind, oil companies will sometimes set fire to the oil to burn it all off, but this can cause air pollution. Oil spills are so disastrous that oil companies and governments try hard to make sure they never even happen in the first place. Oil companies use ships with extra-thick hulls, so even if something on the ship goes wrong, the oil won t spill out. The oil companies send submarines down to check on and strengthen their oil pipes below the ocean, sometimes fixing small leaks before they turn into huge oil spills. Even with this care, oil spills are still happening around the world every year.

13 Water Pollution: Fertilizer Runoff What is fertilizer runoff? People all over the world use fertilizer, a mixture of healthy nutrients, to help their plants grow. Fertilizer makes gardens and lawns greener and more beautiful than they would be otherwise. More importantly, fertilizer lets farmers grow more crops that they would be able to without it, so they re able to produce more food for everyone to eat. Farmers use fertilizer by pouring it directly onto the ground where their crops will grow. This makes the plants that grow in the soil larger and healthier. However, sometimes farmers add more fertilizer to the soil than their plants can use. This extra fertilizer usually just sits in the soil. When a large rainstorm occurs, the rains wash this fertilizer off the ground and carry it with them. Eventually, the rainwaters flow into streams and rivers, which flow into the ocean. Fertilizer carried off farms into the ocean is called fertilizer runoff. Effects of fertilizer runoff It is easy to think that fertilizer being added to the ocean would be a helpful thing. After all, fertilizer is made of nutrients that help plants grown healthy and strong. However, fertilizer runoff in the ocean actually causes some ocean plants called algae to become too healthy, which causes many different problems for ocean life. Most oceans have algae that float near the surface. Algae are tiny, almost microscopic plants that float near the surface of the ocean. Algae plants make their food out of sunlight and the oxygen in the water. Many small fish depend on algae for their food. When fertilizer is washed into the ocean, algae reproduce much more quickly than usual, creating huge algal blooms, or clouds of algae floating in the water. These algal blooms are so large and thick that they block sunlight from reaching areas below them. This can hurt plant life and change water temperatures, which can be deadly for fish. In addition, algal blooms can suck almost all the oxygen out of the water to produce their food. When there is no oxygen in the water, fish and other ocean animals die of suffocation. This creates dead zones in the ocean, where no living thing can survive.

14 How to fix and prevent fertilizer runoff There are many things ordinary people can do to prevent fertilizer runoff from harming ocean life. People can buy fertilizers made with special chemicals that help land plants but do not help algae grow. People can also be careful not to use too much fertilizer by always following the instructions on the fertilizer bag. Finally, people and farmers should be careful not to fertilize right before a rainstorm. If they do, the rain will wash the fertilizer straight into the ocean and their plants won t get any! Once an algal bloom occurs in the ocean, it can be very hard to stop. One way authorities try to stop algal blooms from growing is by introducing animals that eat algae, like oysters, to the area. However, authorities must act quickly, since the algal bloom is quickly using up all the available oxygen in the water. If the algal bloom uses up all the oxygen before animals like oysters can slow its growth, it creates a dead zone, where no living thing can survive. Because of algal blooms created by fertilizer runoff, there are over 400 dead zones in our oceans today.

15 Water Pollution: Chemical Pollution What is chemical pollution? Factories and power plants around the world produce the goods and energy we need to live comfortable lives. However, while these factories are making plastics and electronic devices, they also produce harmful byproducts, or harmful chemicals that are accidentally created while making a helpful item. For example, a factory making computer chips out of the metal zinc often produces the harmful metal cadmium while getting the zinc ready to use. Cadmium is known to damage the lungs and even cause cancer. Most countries have strict laws that tell factories how to dispose of, or get rid of, their harmful byproducts in a safe way. However, getting rid of harmful byproducts is expensive, so many factories in poorer countries try to save money by dumping these byproducts directly into nearby rivers or streams. Of course, dumping dangerous chemicals right into streams creates serious problems for animals that depend on those streams for survival. Effects of chemical pollution In addition to cadmium, some other common harmful byproducts dumped into rivers include asbestos, lead, and mercury. Asbestos is known to cause many types of cancer in animals and humans. Lead and mercury are both chemicals that cause children s brains to develop wrong and can lead to death in both humans and animals. However, chemical pollution does not just harm those close to the factory or close to the polluted river. Mercury poisoning is an interesting example of this problem. One thing that makes mercury so harmful is that it never leaves an animal s body. When a factory dumps the chemical mercury into a river, small fish in that river get some of the mercury into their bodies. Eventually, larger fish eat those small fish. The mercury in the small fish s body is then transferred to the larger fish s body. As large fish eat more and more small fish, their bodies become more and more filled with mercury their bodies can t get rid of the harmful chemical! Some large fish simply die of mercury poisoning, but others survive long enough to be caught by fishermen. These large, mercury-filled fish are then killed, cleaned, and shipped to restaurants and supermarkets all over the world. As humans eat more and more of these fish, the mercury levels in their bodies gets

16 higher and higher. A human who has enough mercury in his or her body will start to lose vision and hearing, then become unable to move, and will eventually die. How to fix and prevent chemical pollution To fight chemical pollution, most governments try to prevent it from ever happening in the first place. The United States has very strict laws about how and where its fish are caught, so fish with the most mercury aren t usually allowed into the United States. (If you want to be extra safe, avoid eating large fish like swordfish and halibut!) Developed countries like the United States also have strict laws about how factories dispose of their harmful byproducts safely, and factories that aren t following those laws can be shut down. Factories themselves try to prevent chemical pollution by building their own water treatment areas, where they pump polluted water to clean it before returning it to the river. Cleaning polluted water is expensive and takes a long time, but it saves many animal and human lives. Once chemical pollution does happen, there are some things governments and factories can do to clean up the harmful chemicals before it does too much harm to the animal kingdom. Sometimes, a second chemical can be dumped into the water to neutralize the harmful chemical so it is no longer harmful. Other times, tons and tons of clean water are poured into the polluted water to spread out the harmful byproducts, so there won t be as many of them in any one place. Though these techniques can work, they often happen too late to save the animal kingdom from serious harm.

17 Water Pollution: Waterborne Disease What are waterborne diseases? Water from oceans and rivers is full of life. Fish, plants, algae, and planktons all live in this water. In addition, microorganisms (creatures too small to see) like bacteria and viruses sometimes live and reproduce in these waters. Most bacteria are harmless to humans and animals; if we drink them, they just pass through our bodies without hurting us. However, some bacteria and viruses can cause serious illnesses and even death in humans and animals. We say that water containing these harmful types of bacteria and viruses carries waterborne disease. In developed countries like the United States, waterborne disease is very rare. The water that comes out of our sinks almost always cleaned so it s healthy to drink. In poorer countries or areas suffering from war, waterborne disease is rampant, or everywhere. People in these areas often drink from wells in the ground but don t have the money or resources to clean the water. Even worse, these areas usually don t have good bathroom systems, so people use the bathroom near the wells, and the water in the wells gets polluted with human waste. This waste spreads diseases which can be deadly for anyone who doesn t get to a hospital quickly. Effects of waterborne diseases There are many types of waterborne diseases that affect humans differently. One of the least harmful is giardia, a disease that many people, even in the United States, get when they drink water from a stream or river without cleaning it first. Microorganisms that cause giardia are spread when people use the bathroom too close to where their drinking water comes from. A person with giardia vomits and has diarrhea for about a week, but recovers with just rest and fluids. Usually a hospital visit is not needed. Another waterborne disease is botulism, which is caused by a specific kind of bacteria. Bacteria that spread botulism enter a person s body when that person drinks infected water or even when a person with a small cut takes a bath in infected water. Inside the body, the bacteria release a poison called botulin, which destroys nerves in the brain. An infected person eventually loses control of their muscles, even the muscles that control breathing. If they don t get medical help, a person with botulism becomes unable to breathe and dies.

18 Cholera might be the most deadly of the waterborne diseases. Cholera spreads most quickly in areas where people are living very close together and don t have access to clean water sources or hospitals. Because of this, cholera usually affects people whose homes have been destroyed in wars or in disasters like earthquakes or floods. A person who drinks water with cholera bacteria in it will quickly start to have diarrhea and sometimes start bleeding. In less than a day, the infected person will die if they do not get medical treatment. How to cure and prevent waterborne disease Waterborne diseases can be very deadly, but they can be prevented and are usually easy to cure. Almost all waterborne diseases are spread when people drink water that hasn t been properly cleaned. Luckily, water is easy to clean. City governments have large filter systems that clean all the water for that city. Regular people can clean their own water by simply boiling it before drinking. Heating water enough to boil it destroys all the microorganisms that spread waterborne diseases. Boiling can prevent waterborne disease, but even after being infected, diseases like cholera and botulism can easily be cured by doctors. To cure botulism, doctors use antitoxins to pull the poison out of the body. To cure diseases like cholera, doctors give victims salty water to drink, which helps keep water in the victim s body. Doctors also give victims antibiotics, medicine that kills the cholera bacteria. Waterborne diseases almost never harm people in richer, more developed countries because they are usually easy to cure. However, in poor countries or in countries that don t have good hospitals, these diseases cause many deaths every year that could be prevented.