Part 1: Contamination of the Wetlands

Objectives
After participating in the program Materials and the Environment, Part 1, students will be able to:
· locate various features of California's San Joaquin Valley
· describe how wetlands can be contaminated by irrigation practices
· list some trace elements found in sea water and their location on the periodic   table
· restate that selenium (Se) is a necessary nutrient
· recognize that too much selenium (Se) is toxic
· describe how salts, minerals, and trace elements can be flushed out of the soil   by water
· explain that salts, minerals, and trace elements can be left behind and   concentrated when water is evaporated

Vocabulary

*trace elements		 any element present in minute quantities in an organism, food, soil, water, etc.
*sediment matter that settles to the bottom of a liquid and/or matter that is deposited by water or wind
*irrigation the water supplied to land and/or crops by means of artificial ditches or channels or sprinklers
*wetlands swamps or marshes
*selenium Se, a gray, nonmetallic element of the sulfur group
*Periodic Table an arrangement of the chemical elements according to their atomic numbers

Materials
(For each group)
       · scale (for weighing out 1 g)
       · weighing papers
       · salt
       · plastic container
       · coffee filter
       · rubber band
       · set of measuring cups and spoons
       · potting soil
       ·water
       · vitamin bottle (with some amount of Se listed)
(For each student)
       · worksheet
       · Periodic Table
(For the teacher)
       · small bottle or vial with 1 mg salt
       · Pyrex container
       · rubber band
       · coffee filter
       · salt
       ·potting soil
       · water
       · Bunsen burner or hot plate

 

Total  Activity Time: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

 

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Disclaimer: These activities were adapted from the website: http://www.lbl.gov/MicroWorlds/Wetlands.

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This work was supported by the Center on Polymer Interfaces and Macromolecular Assemblies (CPIMA)
as part of the NSF Materials Science and Engineering Center program under Grant DMR 9808677

Copyright 1996 - 2003, Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.