What New Technology Adds

New technologies have made an essential contribution to the effectiveness of this unit and to furthering the student understanding of the unit's content.

The Internet

Our Unit Web Page has been a tremendous help in organizing the unit, making the unit goals explicit, and making the lesson materials and homework easily available to the students. It also served as a good starting point for the students when conducting research on their water quality sites, as it contained links to several water quality agencies. The extensive use of the Internet and the Water Quality resources available there, particularly the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) and the Charles River Watershed Association (CRWA) Websites helped make the unit more generative by showing the students how much water quality work is constantly being done in their area. These Websites also allowed the students to research some data on the quality of the water they use for drinking and recreation. Finally, the Internet served as a great resource for many student groups as they conducted background research on their chosen bosies of water.

Calculator Based Laboratory (CBL)

We used the CBL system and the Vernier Dissolved Oxygen probe to test the water for Dissolved Oxygen. The CBL system contributed two important things to the unit:

• Simplified the test procedure and made the test perfectly safe to perform, both inside and outdoors. The alternative chemical test involves using several toxic and corrosive solutions that may be a concern when working outside.
• Helped the students connect this unit to other units and experiments in Chemistry where they used the CBL system.

Word Processing and Data Analysis

The students were required to use a word processor to create their posters, which made it easier for the groups to share their work and standardize the appearance of the poster. Many groups also employed Excel in graphing their data and presenting it in a visual way.

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• Materials and Resources