What is it?

Urbana Middle School, Urbana, IL

As an introduction to some of the instruments the students will use later in the year to measure water, Ryan Jackson from the University of Illinois leads the UMS WaterWorks students in an activity that teaches them to use scientific inquiry to determine what an object is used for. The students were asked to choose an item and they were told that all the items are instruments (or parts of instruments) for measuring water. The students then had to figure out what the object is used for and how it is used. To make it more interesting, the students were instructed that 3 of the objects the students selected are related and that they fit together in some way.

The students did an excellent job figuring out what the instruments were used for and nearly figured out how all three objects fit together. The instruments were used for measuring water velocity, temperature, conductivity, depth, turbidity, salinity, and density.

Students work together to determine how their object is used and what it measures.