Author Name: Kristen Leonard

Grade Level: Second

Lesson Title: Water Conservation

Subject Area(s): Social Studies - Geography and Environmental Literacy

Key Concepts:
Water
Water Conservation

Guiding Questions:
o What do you like about water in the world? (swimming in lakes and pools,
looking at waterfalls, taking a hot shower, etc)
o How much water do you think you use within a day?
o What are things we do with the clean water that comes into our houses and
school?
o How can we do our part to take care and conserve the usable water in the world?

Academic Standards:

2.G.1- Use geographic representations, terms, and technology to process information from a
spatial perspective

2.G.2- Understand the effects of humans interacting with their environment

Learning Objectives:
Students will be able to:

define water conservation in order to understand that it effectively means avoiding

wastage of potable water.
Explain how we use water every day at home, outdoors and at school in order to
understand that water is used everywhere.
explore strategies for conserving water at home, school and in the community in order to
understand that conservation is important because clean water is a limited resource.
create a graphic organizer depicting daily water uses in order to understand that we use
water for many reasons throughout the day.
Assessment:
After reading the book, Why Should I Save Water:
Use a large piece of chart paper or the whiteboard to create a treemap of the places we use water
every day. (e.g. brushing our teeth, watering the grass, water fountains)

Prerequisite Knowledge:
Students will understand the concept of water conservation from their world water day lesson.

Materials and Resources:

Green, Jen. Why Should I Save Water? (Why Should I? Books) Barron's
Educational Series (February 28, 2005) ISBN: 0764131575
A white board
Dry erase markers/markers
A gallon water jug

Prior Preparation:
Arrange students around the whiteboard or a table next to a whiteboard.

Hook/Before:
1. Now that students have learned about the different states of water, where our water
comes from and water in different regions, we are now going to learn about the ways we
can conserve water.
2. What does the word water conservation mean? We will together discuss what these
words mean. Water conservation effectively means avoiding wastage of potable water.
3. Each student will then get a sticky note. Students will be asked, How many of these do
you think you use a day (Gallon jug that I will bring to class).
4. Students will write their number estimate with their name on the sticky note. We will take
a look at the predictions at the end of our lesson.

Model/Guided Practice:
1. . Read Why Should I Save Water? As your read, emphasize the idea of water
Conservation.Stop and discuss issues as they come up in the text.
2. . During reading, reflect on the concepts and connect to students' personal
experiences.
3. Make a tree map on the board with the title When do we use water?- list three main
topics under your title. (Home, Outdoors and School)
 4. As a class, come up with the ways that we use water at the places listed.
5. Discuss the ways that we could conserve water in these areas
6. End the lesson by taking a look at the sticky notes estimates to see who was close to the
average of between 80 and 100 gallons of water per day. This average was obtained from:

What is the national average water usage per person? (n.d.). Retrieved April 16, 2017, from
https://www.reference.com/world-view/national-average-water-usage-per-person-e5768e4c5cb1
4b34

Closure/Evaluation/After:

1. We will look at the students number predictions.

2. I will tell the students that each of them use about 80-100 of those gallon jugs a day. We
will end by reviewing the ways that we discussed how we could decrease this number in
the future.

Accommodations: For differently abled learners, allow them to draw a picture of ways to
conserve water and then dictate their thoughts to the teacher or an older student.