SimWater: Simulating water supply, demand, & management
Grades 6 -
12
Hydrology • Engineering/MethodDevelopment • Modeling/ComputationalScience • SocialScience
Activity • Lesson Plan
Educational Objectives
Describe aspects of the decisionmaking process for water managers, including how they answer questions like:
- Who receives water?
- And how much agriculture can we sustain?
Audience
K-12
NGSS Crosscutting Concepts: Scale, Proportion, and Quantity | Systems and System Models | Energy and Matter - Flows, Cycles, and Conservation | Stability and Change
NGSS Science & Engineering Practices: Analyzing and Interpreting Data | Developing and Using Models | Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions | Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking
NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas: ESS3 - Earth and Human Activity | ETS2 - Links Among Engineering, Technology, Science, and Society
Observatory: Sierra CZO
Author(s): Ryan Lucas, Michelle Gilmore, Erin Stacy (all at Southern Sierra CZO)
Contact(s):
Funding: NSF CZO
Details for this Resource
Water managers balance water needs with water availability. In this activity designed for 10th-12th graders, students work through water budgeting calculations and allocate land and water, simulating the some of the issues water managers solve as they regulate complex systems of water storage, delivery, and consumption.
Note: This activity was originally developed for an American Geosciences Institute teacher workshop.
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