1. Healthy Rivers & Water Quality
Learning Target: I can describe what water quality is.
Success Criteria: I can explain how to tell if the water quality of a river is good or bad.
Haseeb Ahmed

2. What does a healthy river
Talk to your shoulder partner:
What does a healthy river
look like?
This slide is meant to help students make connections to prior knowledge.
Record student answers on the board. There are no wrong answers at this point.

3. Healthy River Definition:
A healthy river is a river that can support a variety of healthy plants, animals and humans.
This definition is important for students to be familiar with. Go back to this definition throughout the presentation to remind kids of what constitutes a healthy river.

4. One element that all healthy rivers have is good water quality.
What does water quality mean?

5. Water quality depends on what the river carries:
Rivers carry dissolved things, like chemicals…
What type of chemicals are in the water, natural chemicals or bad chemicals like pollution?
How much of each chemical is in the water?
and bigger things, like sediment.
How much sediment is carried by the river?
How big is the sediment (boulders versus sand)
carried by the river?
Water quality depends on a river having the proper amount of the chemicals and sediment it carries.
Healthy rivers also have good water quality. So you could sum good water quality in the same way that we defined healthy rivers: It can support healthy plants, animals and humans.
Can also ask a question to go deeper on the “chemical composition” part and try to get at the concept of concentration (i.e., how much of a thing is in the water):
Are nutrients (like nitrogen, a primary component of fertilizers, for example) good or bad chemicals?
Good in the right concentrations, bad if too high or too low concentration

6. You might find it’s harder to determine than you thought!
Look at the images on the next few slides and try to guess which one has good water quality.
You might find it’s harder to determine than you thought!

7. Example #1
Do you think these rivers have good water quality or bad water quality? Why?
Have students discuss their thoughts.

8. Answer: It depends… River water can come in a wide range of colors
Answer: It depends… River water can come in a wide range of colors. Some rivers naturally carry more sediment, which is eroded from the land. Other rivers naturally carry less sediment and the water looks clearer. Either color of water can have good or bad water quality, depending on what is natural in that river.
This image shows two rivers that flow together. Some rivers naturally have more sediment suspended in it (river on the left) and some rivers have less sediment (river on the right). Different plants and animals have adapted to living in different types of rivers. Both can be healthy for plants, animals and humans, as long as it has not been disturbed from it’s original state.

9. Example #2
Do you think this river has good water quality or bad water quality? Why?
These men are placer mining. They are trying to find gold deposits in the sediment next to the river. Notice how the erosion is adding extra sediment to the water. This can negatively affect the health of the river and the plants and animals that live there.

10. Answer: Bad water quality
Mining dumps excess sediment in this river, polluting it. Some fish, like this Salmon, need clearer water with less sediment for their eggs to survive. If the river is disturbed, such fish won’t be able to reproduce and will die off.
Salmon rivers are naturally clear and have less fine sediment (like silt and clay). When sediment from mines is added to these rivers, it buries Salmon eggs and prevents them from getting oxygen, killing them.

11. Example #3
Do you think this river has good water quality or bad water quality?
More Information:
PRA

12. Answer: Bad water quality
The Colorado River was naturally sediment filled before it was dammed. The Humpback Chub has adapted to living in the muddy Colorado river. Humpback Chub require warm, murky, sediment filled water to survive. Dams, like the one shown below, create deep reservoirs that allow sediment to sink instead of flowing downstream. That means there is less sediment in the water, which affects the survival of these fish. ]\

13. Example #4
Do you think this river has good water quality or bad water quality?
This the Ganges river in India.
Sudhanshu

14. Answer: Bad water quality
Pollution from cities, factories, and street runoff can create bad water quality that cannot always be seen.
Some pollution can lead to health problems in humans and animals.
Pollution in water can cause a variety of physical abnormalities and diseases in humans, plants, and animals

15. It was harder than you thought. Right
It was harder than you thought. Right? You cannot tell if a river has good water quality just by looking at it. The only way to actually determine if water quality is good is by scientific testing.

16. How can you help maintain healthy river water quality?
Leo Reynolds
Have students brainstorm ways that they can help maintain healthy water quality in rivers near them.

17. Review Scenario
You and a friend are on a trip to Southern Colorado. You stop to look at a beautiful river. Your friend says that all rivers that are clear are healthy, and all rivers that are brown are dirty.
What would you say to your friend?
Students should be able to describe that you cannot usually tell if a river has good or bad water quality just from looking at it. It depends on how the river is naturally and if the river can sustain healthy plants, animals and humans.

18. Water Quality Extension Activity:
Do some research on a river that has poor water quality.
Create a public service announcement that describes why the river has poor water quality.
Explain how to determine if the water quality is good or bad.
Describe a few ideas for what could be done to improve the water quality of the river.
This is an optional extension to the lesson.
Example: