The Mill Brook Project

Shoreline Survey of Mill Brook, Arlington, MA

I. Description of project and essential questions

A. Description of Project

1. Arlington High School and Ottoson Middle School students will collaborate as stewards on surveying the shoreline of Mill Brook. Field studies will be done on the shoreline.

2. Students will learn to identify the watershed in their area.

3. Students will collect data and present results to another group in the community.

4. Students will heighten community awareness by displaying data for community information and awareness.

B. Essential questions

1. Can students identify a local watershed in their community?

2. Can students collect data concerning their watershed?

3. Can they interpret their data and present it in meaningful forms?

II. Grade Level

Middle school(grades 6-8) and high school (grades 9-10)

III. Framework standards related to the lesson

Strand One - Inquiry

Grade Span 5-8 Learning Standards For Inquiry

Bullet 1 - Note and describe relevant details, patterns and relationships.

* Students will become perceptive in using the shoreline inventory sheets, note patterns along the river bank, and see relationships such as flora and fauna in both wet and dry environments.

Bullet 2 - Differentiate between questions that can be answered through direct investigation and those that cannot.

* Students will be able to distinguish information that is supported by their observations and information that is not.

Bullet 3 - Represent data and findings using tables, models, demonstrations and graphs.

* Students will use the tables developed in this lesson to record their data and to make graphs from the tables.

Grade Span 9-10 Learning Standards For Inquiry

Bullet 1 - Distinguish those observations that are relevant to the question or problem at hand.

* Students will focus their shoreline surveys on those factors listed on the data sheets.

Bullet 6 - Select appropriate methods of recording and interpreting data.

* Students will learn about watersheds and understand the significance of the parameters collected and recorded on their shoreline survey sheets. During class discussions and follow up, the importance of the data collected will be studied and understood.

Bullet 7 - Accurately use scientific and technological nomenclature, symbols and conventions when representing and communicating ideas, procedures, and findings.

* Students will correctly use the vocabulary of the survey sheets and scientific terms used to describe the data.

Strand Two: Domains of Science, Life Sciences

Grade Span 5-8

Diversity and Adaptation of Organisms

Bullet 1 - Explain situations in which short-term changes in available food, moisture, or temperature of an ecosystem may result in a change in the number of organisms in a population or in the average size of individual organisms or in the behavior of individuals in a population.

* Students will see examples of succession along the river bank.

Ecosystems and Organisms

Bullet 1 - Present evidence that species depend on one another.

* Students will witness many examples along the river bank by observing insect and other animals as they feed on vegetation (primary consumers) and other food sources (higher consumers such as secondary and tertiary)

Bullet 3 - Observe and illustrate the variety of ways in which plants, animals, fungi, and micro-organisms interact.

* Students will observe trophic levels and see how energy is converted while matter is recycled.

Grade Span 9-10

Matter and Energy in Ecosystem

Bullet 1 - Examine and describe ways in which the conservation of energy law is a powerful tool for the analysis of energy flow in ecosystems.

* As teachers conduct field surveys and field studies, lessons on photosynthesis will be given. While the students work in the field, teachers will point out the role of producers (plants), note how they fix sunlight energy in their tissues, and pass this chemical energy up the various food chains that students examine first hand.

Strand Two: Domains of Science, Earth Science

Grade Span 5-8

Interactions and Cycles in the Earth System

Bullet 5 - Give evidence that water in the Earth System exists naturally in all three states and water continuously circulates through the earth's crust, oceans and air, e. g. water cycle.

* During the shoreline surveys over the seasons, students will see the water cycle in full swing. Teachers will give lessons about water in the solid, liquid, and gaseous states. They will also note over subsequent visits to the same sites how water shapes the Earth's crust by erosion and deposition of sediments.

Grade Span 9-10

Geochemical Processes and Cycles in the Earth System

Bullet 4 - Investigate and illustrate the theory that land forms of various shapes and sizes result from both constructive and destructive processes. Volcanic eruptions, sediment deposition, tectonic uplift, and other processes serve to build up land forms, and weathering and erosion wear them down.

* Students will see both erosion and deposition along the river bank over time.

Bullet 2 - Relate understanding that over a period of a few days, water vapor rises from Earth's surface into the atmosphere. Winds carry the vapor poleward where it condenses to form clouds and precipitation, releasing the energy initially used to evaporate the water. Over several weeks water flows down a river to the sea. Over many years water flows through underground aquifers.

* Students will experience the constant flow and recharge of Mill Brook through processes related to the water cycle over time.
 
 

Strand Three: Technology

Grade Span 5-8

Technological Areas of Communication, Construction, Manufacturing, Transportation, and Power Technologies

Bullet 1 - Give examples that information can be communicated both graphically and electronically by a range of technological processes.

* Students will post their data results on watershed homepage for others to read and to learn from.

Grade Span 9-10

The Nature and Impact of Technology

Bullet 2 - Describe ways in which technological impacts can be multidimensional (i. e., economic, social, environmental, political).

* Students will examine how technology has impacted Mill Brook over time.

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Bullet 1 - Describe examples of new and emerging technologies in areas of communication, construction, manufacturing, transportation, power, and bio-related technology.

* Students will examine how power on Mill Brook has changed over time like the Schaum Mill. The techniques of manufacturing at the Schaum Mill over the centuries will show how once emerging energy sources become obsolete and are replaced by new processes. Examples would be the waterwheel in the past and electricity now.

Strand 4: Science, Technology, and Human Affairs

Grade Span 5-8 Learning Standards

Bullet 1 - Describe situations in which science, technology, and society have influenced each other in the past.

* Students will investigate the history of the Schaum Mill on Mill Brook. This investigation will relate the history of the mill and the land use to changes in science, technology, and society.

Bullet 3 - Give examples that the decisions we make as individuals, groups and communities can affect society and the natural environment, and that these changes are not always easy to reverse.

* Students will become aware of how the Arlington community has treated Mill Brook and its surrounding land uses over time. They will see the misuse of some of the land and water and its consequences. One area of interest will be non-point source pollution.

Grade Span 9-10 Learning Standards

Bullet 2 - Describe situations that illustrate how scientific and technological revolutions have changed society.

* Students investigate the history of Schaum Mill as a case example of how the Industrial Revolution has changed the way mill technology has changed over time.

IV. Local District or School Curriculum Objectives

A. To engage all students in an interactive activity that will have community benefits.

B. To become aware of the beauty and benefits of the students' own natural resource through ownership .

C. To allow students to utilize their academic knowledge in the wider community.

D. To reinforce skills of data gathering , recording of information, data analysis, artistic expression, and manual dexterity.

E. To produce through cooperative learning a tangible expression of knowledge that students have obtained and to be able to share it with a more global body , the community.

F. To bridge a gap between the students and the community by providing information for all ages.

V. Enabling Activities

A. Students will learn and convey information of the flora and fauna of Arlington's Mill Brook.

B. Students will physically explore Mill Brook.

C. Students will construct a bulletin board to display ecological information of the community.

D. Students will learn to monitor a waterway and work cooperatively.

E. Students will become stewards for Arlington's Mill Brook.

F. Students will become more involved in a more global awareness through participation in Adopt- A -Stream.

G. Students will learn to organize and illustrate information for a comprehensive audience.
 
 

VI. Products or performance

A. Students will construct a Bulletin Board.

B. Students will display Information.

C. Students will take photographs for the displays.

VII. Criteria for assessment

A. Students make a concept map containing the major items associated with a watershed.

VIII. Culminating activity

A. Present a slide show to an elementary school to involve others in community awareness.

OR

B. Mentor an elementary class in techniques of data collection - outreach and/or form partnerships between Middle School and High School students.
 

Boston Harbor Basin Map: Includes The Mystic River Watershed