In this unit, the students role-play as environmentalists and they have been invited to be delegates at the “Save our Rivers” national conference organized by the Department of Environment (DOE), Malaysia. The students representing Penang will study the grave problem of the pollution of Pinang river, Sungai Juru and other rivers of Penang. They will work in teams and conduct a thorough investigation about the causes and effects of water pollution in the rivers. The young environmentalists will suggest recommendations in the national conference through a multimedia presentation. With an aim to make a change in the community, the students will make flyers and organize an awareness campaign.

Curriculum-Framing Questions

• Essential Question
  How can I make this world a better place?
• Unit Questions
  How can we preserve our rivers?
  What is our role in preventing water pollution in our community?
• Content Questions
  What is the level of pollution in our rivers?
  How does water pollution occur?
  What are the effects of water pollution?
  What are some of the ways to overcome water pollution?

Assessment Processes
View how a variety of student-centred assessments are used in the Water Pollution – Our Destiny or Deed Unit Plan. These assessments help students and teachers to set goals; monitor students’ progress; provide feedback; assess thinking, processes, performances, and products and reflect on learning throughout the learning cycle.

Instructional Procedures
Day 1 – 2 Introducing the Unit
Create a poster to put up in your classroom that asks, “How can I make this world a better place?” Hold a discussion on this question in the class.  Have the students write out their thoughts about this question in their journals (DOC 42.0KB).

Introduce students to their role as environmentalists and get them to take up the task of studying water pollution. They will be environmentalists who understand river ecosystems and can make others aware of the ways of protecting them. They will participate in the National Conference on “Save our Rivers”. The focus of the conference will be on the research questions: “How can we preserve our rivers?” and “What is our role in preventing water pollution in our community?” Students will work in teams and conduct a thorough investigation on the causes and effects of water pollution. Each team has to suggest recommendations in the national conference through a multimedia presentation. Being the delegates for the national conference, they will have to reach out to the community and arrange an awareness campaign.

Explain that in their role as environmentalists from Penang, they will research and present a proposal in the form of a presentation for controlling water pollution in the rivers in Penang. They will work in teams to put together presentations for the national conference.

Present the project to the students using the introductory presentation (PPT 162KB) and provide necessary instructions for the students to successfully carry out the project.

Day 3 – 5 Introduce Research
Divide the students into groups and distribute the collaboration checklist (DOC 61.0KB). Discuss the key areas in the collaboration checklist and highlight the importance of each area for the success of the project. Draw the students’ attention to the problem of water pollution in Penang. Stress their roles as environmentalists and the importance of doing research and carrying out tests so as to be able to present their understanding and view points at the national conference in an effective manner. Direct the students to review the following questions while doing their research:

• How does water pollution occur?
• What are the effects of water pollution?
• What are some of the ways to overcome water pollution?

Share with the students the research rubric (DOC 14.5KB) and go over the various criteria in the rubric such as Research strategy, Information gathering, Analysis and Synthesis. Share with them the research project tips (DOC 26.0KB) sheet. Give enough time for students to locate information to answer the above questions in an in-depth manner and following the guidelines given in the rubric. Provide time for students to surf the Internet, visit the library, or visit the DOE office to gather the required information.

Introduce the research sheet (DOC 64.5KB) to the students. This sheet gives students a place to consolidate their research findings. Some students may want to keep their research sheets in the form of blog. See research Blog* for an example. Review the blog checklist (DOC37.5KB) with students to help guide their work.

Pose the following question to the students:
What is the level of pollution in our rivers?

Conclude the discussion giving a summary and introducing the planned field trip. Make students realize that they are representing Penang in the national conference.

Day 6 – 8 Field Trip
Share with the students the names of the rivers in Penang that have been identified for the field trip. Allot different rivers to different teams. Send out parent permission letters. Get the help of other teachers to accompany the different river groups. Orient students about the field visit to the river sites. Stress on the Do’s and Don’ts during the field visit.

In preparation for the field visit ask students to give their ideas of how they can tell if pollution is present. List their responses on the board. Lead this exercise towards recognizing the need to identify and quantify presence of individual pollutants. In collaboration with the chemistry teacher familiarize the students with the equipment and test kits and point out how they can be used to test the different qualities of water.

In class, practice doing all of the tests with appropriate safety procedures and equipment care. Use plain tap water, which you may enhance with a pinch of something (non-toxic) for which you will be testing (e.g., salt, vinegar, fertilizer).

Make student teams visit the rivers for observations. During the visit make sure that the students role play as environmentalists and see that they note down their observations in their observation sheet (DOC 45.0KB). Under the guidance of the chemistry teacher get the students to record temperature, pH, Dissolved Oxygen, Plant Life, Animal Life (micro and macro organisms). Make sure that the students collect water samples for studying and use the water testing equipment and conduct their analysis. Ask students to tabulate the results of the test in the research sheet/research blog to be included in the multimedia presentation for the conference.

Day 9 – 11 Consolidating their findings
Provide time for students to investigate “What are some of the ways to overcome water pollution?” on the Internet. Motivate them to study articles and research papers. Provide time for students to discuss within their teams and think of the steps to control water pollution in the rivers of Penang.

Remind the students of the Essential and Unit Questions:

• How can I make this world a better place?
• How can we preserve our rivers?
• What is our role in preventing water pollution in our community?

Arrange for a guest speaker from Universiti Sains Malaysia to give a talk on ways to prevent water pollution. Make students ask questions and note down the relevant points for their project.

Day 11 – 14 Preparing Multimedia Presentations
Introduce the assignment of making multimedia presentations. Ask students to make a story board of their presentation. Inform students to make a comprehensive presentation including their study, their methodology, their experiments, etc. Remind students to address the questions: “How can we preserve our rivers?” and “What is our role in preventing water pollution in our community?” through their presentation. Share presentation assessment tool (DOC 38.0KB) with the students and help them to understand the expected presentation standards.

Day 14 – 17 Mock National Conference and Preparation of Flyers
Provide time for the students to rehearse for the mock national conference. Arrange for a mock national conference in the school, by collaborating with other teachers and class to be participants and panelists. Arrange for experts from Universiti Sains Malaysia to attend the conference. During the mock conference session get the student teams to role play as environmentalists and share their presentations (PPT 4.62MB) and participate in discussions on controlling water pollution.

Following this encourage students to plan an awareness campaign in the community. Introduce the assignment to make flyers for the awareness campaign. Share flyer rubric (DOC 35.0KB) with the students. Provide time for students to make flyers.

Day 18-19 Awareness Campaign & Revisiting Essential question
Get the students to organize an Awareness Campaign in their community. For this purpose arrange a rally and invite students from the neighbouring schools to participate. As the students walk in the rally encourage them to distribute their flyers (PDF 131KB).

As a culminating event get the students to revisit the essential question: How can I make this world a better place? and note down their ideas in an essay form. Encourage students to quote examples based on their experiences in this project.   

Prerequisite Skills

• Knowledge about water pollution.
• Understanding about the importance of water.
• Ability to conduct research using print and electronic resources.
• Possession of basic computer skills and ability to use word processing and presentation applications.
• Students may need mini-lessons on blog

Differentiated Instruction
Resource Student

• Provide extra handouts to the students.
• Allot extra time for them to complete the tasks.
• Hold additional discussions to help organize data.
• Develop a daily “to do” schedule of tasks to help focus the student’s effort during project work.
• Recognize the students’ strengths and put them to use when assigning group tasks.
• Set expectations for cooperative work so that all team members are engaged and their contributions valued.
• Meet with the student frequently to check their understanding and progress.

Gifted Student

• Have the student serve as an expert during research.
• Encourage the students to investigate more complex questions.