Follow up to the Questioning Activity
by Katy Butler, First Grade Teacher, Jackson Street School

At our last round table discussion, Renee presented work she had done with her class.
Each student was given an image of a cloud and a faucet and asked to show how the water got from one to the other (just as we did this summer). Then she had her students look closely at the representations and ask questions they had or that would push their friends’ thinking. We tried this activity ourselves, organizing and categorizing our questions.

I tried this questioning activity with my first graders (they had just recently made their own cloud to faucet representations so I could see how their thinking had evolved since the fall). I collected and typed up their questions, and noticed a couple common themes. I am planning to organize the questions with them when we return from spring vacation, but I wanted to tap into a few more resources in the meantime. After searching the Northampton Public Works website, I emailed the directors of stormwater and wastewater treatment. They sent me two resources that I wanted to share with everyone!

•  Water in Northampton
• Map of Pipes around Jackson Street School

Here is a section of the email I sent Northampton Public Works
We came up with many questions, but most centered around gutters, drains, sewers, pipes and cleanliness. Here are some examples:

Does it fall in the sewer? Where does the water land? Does all water go in the sewer?
Does water always go in the gutter? Where does it go after the rain? Where does it go in the pipes? Where does it get transported? How does it go in the sewer? How does it get to the home?
Which house does it go to? How does the pipe go to everyones house with one pipe?
Why is there only one pipe? Which drain does it go in? How does the water get to the faucet?
Where is the cleaner? How does it get clean?

Up until now, much of our inquiry has been investigated with experiments or observable phenomenon. Now I am unsure how to help students follow these questions without being able to “see” all the pipes. I also see a misconception about waste water and drinking water that is very interesting. I am writing to see if either of you might be able to help with our inquiry. Are there maps of the water pipe lines in Northampton? Is there a location where we could visit and see the gutter connecting to a pipe or series of pipes?

I heard back immediately, and here is part of one response that may be helpful to others:
“I know the most about the stormwater system in the City of Northampton and I would be happy to help explain how the City’s different utilities work. There are three separate systems in the City:

1. Water (clean drinking water)
2. Sanitary Sewer (waste water from houses and buildings)
3. Stormwater (rain water and snow melt)

I made a map of the three sets of pipes that are around Jackson Street School.

Solid blue is drinking water, red is sewer and green is stormwater with green squares for catch basins which are the grates in the roadways where rain water goes in.  I believe there are more catch basins at Jackson Street School in the parking lot and around the property that are not on the map. The students could look for these and help us add them to the map. The dashed blue lines are brooks. I know maps may be difficult for the kids to understand so I’ll look for some pictures or diagrams that might help explain all these hidden systems and where water comes from and where it goes.

Here’s a quick description. The drinking water in Northampton comes from reservoirs in Whately and Williamsburg and runs through a water filtration plant in Williamsburg before flowing through pipes to everybody’s faucet. The waste water (toilets and drains inside buildings) from houses and buildings all flows through sanitary sewer pipes to the waste water treatment plant located off of Hockanum Road. The waste water treatment plant cleans up the waste water and then sends clean water to the Connecticut River. The stormwater that is collected in roads and parking lots flows through separate pipes to the nearest brook, wetland or river and does not go through any treatment plant. That’s why we need to be careful that we don’t put anything in the storm drains except clean water.”

Perhaps we could all help fill in catch basin maps!
The map of Jackson Street School’s surrounding pipelines is especially exciting, and I plan to find more catch basins with the kids next week. I am working to plan a field trip to “see” this system in action, and may invite one of the water directors to our classroom once we have completed the storm drain map. I would be happy to help others get in contact with wastewater and stormwater departments if they are interested – perhaps we could all help fill in catch basin maps!

written by Katy & posted by Carol

COMING SOON: FINAL WATER INQUIRY ROUNDTABLE MONDAY APRIL 25 3:30-5:30  RSVP cberner@smith.edu

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Questions about Water: Cloud to Faucet Student Drawings
Water Inquiry Teacher Roundtable

How does water travel?
On the sunny afternoon of March 31, teachers from three elementary schools joined Smith students and faculty to investigate children’s maps tracing the journey of water from cloud to faucet. Renee Bachman brought student work from Leeds Elementary School, where her third graders have been exploring rain, water droplets and the river as part of a year-long water inquiry.  Children’s diagrams stimulated a flurry of questions about how water travels and about advancing inquiry.

 

Questioning as a Tool for Deepening Inquiry
Teachers spent several minutes looking closely at each drawing and crafting questions on sticky notes in response to the prompt:  What questions does this student work stimulate for you?
Questions included:

“How are those pipes connected to the faucet?”

“It says clean water goes in, but how does the water get cleaned?”

“How does the cloud know to let the rain go?”

 

Sorting Questions
Participants sorted their questions into clusters of ideas by taking turns reading aloud a question and deciding if and how it connected to other questions.  The biggest cluster focused on the overarching question,  “How does water get clean?” One child’s drawing and explanation of the “water mill” provoked follow-up questions about where, why and how water gets clean (and what makes it dirty).

Identifying Overarching Questions
Teachers worked in pairs with clusters of questions to look for overarching questions and think about next steps for student inquiry:
What makes water dirty?
How does water get cleaned?
What do pipes do?
How do clouds work?
One teacher discovered an overarching theme, “What does water do by itself, and what do we control?”

 

Where do we go from here?
Teachers exchanged ideas about adapting questioning strategies for K-3 classrooms. Marcia Garcia highlighted the importance of students asking their own questions and thought her Kindergarteners would want to investigate what makes water dirty. Bob Hepner had the idea of exploring how pipes work by building marble mazes. Katy Butler brainstormed ways to help first graders write and sort questions. Al Rudnitsky discovered a cycle of questions in the “cloud” cluster and  Hannah Searles was curious about the “creatures” living in the “dirty” ocean water pictured in one child’s drawing.

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Sneak Peek! Water Story for Classrooms
Ruth Neils and Hannah Searles read aloud their working draft of a water inquiry adventure story designed to engage children in asking questions and solving problems to rescue ducklings from a storm drain. Al connected the water story to his research using story-telling as a tool for teaching first grade math Investigations. Participating teachers gave valuable feedback about the story, which students are eager to revise and pilot in classrooms.  Stay tuned for more!

Written by Carol Berner on behalf of the Water Inquiry Team
Ruth Neils (’19)  Hannah Searles (’18) and Al Rudnitsky
(with Pinn Janvatanavit contributing images and ideas)