SCIENCE

Before reading

1.    Where does your community get its drinking water from?

2.    Have you ever noticed a rainbow-colored sheen in a parking lot puddle? What do you think caused that sheen?

During reading

1.    Why couldn’t residents of Toledo, Ohio, just boil their water to make it safe?

2.    Identify one cause of algal blooms.

3.    What was one result of the Cuyahoga River fire?

4.    What pollutants can “runoff” carry into rivers, lakes and streams?

5.    What is an aquifer?

6.    What do fluoride and arsenic share in common?

7.    What happens to water mains in the United States 240,000 times a year?

8.    Why does lead, a toxic metal, sometimes leach into drinking water?

9.    Where is most of the world’s water?

10.Where does California get more of its water from during droughts?

After reading

1.    Is groundwater a renewable resource? Whether you answer yes, no or sometimes, provide details to support your argument.

2.    How do you use water inside your home? Where are some areas that you might cut back on your use of water?

SOCIAL STUDIES

1.    Create a map of the Great Lakes and show what areas of land drain into each lake. Then show the order in which water flows from each lake into the next, and on to the Atlantic Ocean.