Project coordinators and scientist-mentors will support teachers as they engage students in a groundwater curriculum that focuses on monitoring well water for arsenic and sharing data with their communities. Below are other curricula and activities teachers can draw upon.
1. pH Activities for Home and Classroom
Studies of pH may be helpful for students seeking to understand how metals could get into their drinking water. Acidic water can leach metals from pipes, resulting in lead in drinking water, even if there is no lead at the public water source or in your well! (See activities related to lead in drinking water on our Element Focus: Lead page)
2. Contribute to “pH in Sipayik”
pH activities were initially designed for Sipayik Elementary School in Pleasant Point, Maine. If your students have pH measurements and observations of home tap water, feel free to contribute your data to their “pH in Sipayik” project on our citizen science data portal at anecdata.org. We will make the emerging dataset available on our Tuva platform so that students can analyze and map their results!
Participants in the “pH in Sipayik” project are using Bacnunn Test strips. If you plan to contribute your pH readings and drinking water observations to the project, please use the same test strips and follow the instructions on the package to ensure that your results are accurate and comparable to those of other participants. Click on the image below to order test strips.
3. Participate in “Crowd the Tap”
Another related project that students might be interested in is “Crowd the Tap.” It is also a citizen science project, but this one aims to create a national database of different types of pipes delivering water to taps. Instructions on how to participate can be found here.