Hydrologist - Research and Development - Fun Activities

Research and Development - HYDROLOGIST

Water Pollution, Hydrologists and Engineers: One solution to the world's drinking water

Primary

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Critical and creative thinking

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Intercultural Understanding

Teacher Information

This LIFESTRAW lesson is suitable for students in Years 4 - 7 and focuses on issues related to the sanitation and access to clean drinking water in developing countries. The workshop includes a basic introduction to engineering, a demonstration of the LIFESTRAW in action and an applied activity in which students create a basic 2D or 3d prototype of the LIFESTRAW.

Local Copy: Lesson Plan [created by Ryan Collins, Equity Pathways, ACU Sydney]

Reflection.

Are there other problems you can think of that require Hydrologists to solve? Make a list of these problems and discuss as a class.

What other researchers are needed to help the Hydrologist solve these problems?

The Great Artesian Basin: A Creative Response!

Primary Middle Secondary

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Critical and creative thinking

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Literacy

Australian Curriculum General Capability: ICT Capability

1. Watch: YouTube: How The Great Artesian Basin works Video
https://youtu.be/oI3QI5SRBFY

2. Watch: YouTube: Balancing the Basin's water
https://youtu.be/LGSEAaKkR2g

3. Listen to this poem by one of our famous writers Banjo Paterson.

Teachers: Read out this poem to the class. Or you could get the students to listen to a song based on this poem - Song of the Artesian Water (Penny Davies & Roger Ilott - below)

“Song Of The Artesian Water”- by Banjo Paterson

Now the stock have started dying, for the Lord has sent a drought;
But we're sick of prayers and Providence -- we're going to do without;
With the derricks up above us and the solid earth below,
We are waiting at the lever for the word to let her go.

Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we'll sink it deeper down:
As the drill is plugging downward at a thousand feet of level,
If the Lord won't send us water, oh, we'll get it from the devil;
Yes, we'll get it from the devil deeper down.

Now, our engine's built in Glasgow by a very canny Scot,
And he marked it twenty horse-power, but he don't know what is what:
When Canadian Bill is firing with the sun-dried gidgee logs,
She can equal thirty horses and a score or so of dogs.

Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we're going deeper down:
If we fail to get the water, then it's ruin to the squatter,
For the drought is on the station and the weather's growing hotter,
But we're bound to get the water deeper down.

But the shaft has started caving and the sinking's very slow,
And the yellow rods are bending in the water down below,
And the tubes are always jamming, and they can't be made to shift
Till we nearly burst the engine with a forty horse-power lift.

Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we're going deeper down:
Though the shaft is always caving, and the tubes are always jamming,
Yet we'll fight our way to water while the stubborn drill is ramming --
While the stubborn drill is ramming deeper down.

But there's no artesian water, though we've passed three thousand feet,
And the contract price is growing, and the boss is nearly beat.
But it must be down beneath us, and it's down we've got to go,
Though she's bumping on the solid rock four thousand feet below.

Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we're going deeper down:
And it's time they heard us knocking on the roof of Satan's dwellin';
But we'll get artesian water if we cave the roof of hell in --
Oh! we'll get artesian water deeper down.

But it's hark! the whistle's blowing with a wild, exultant blast,
And the boys are madly cheering, for they've struck the flow at last;
And it's rushing up the tubing from four thousand feet below,
Till it spouts above the casing in a million-gallon flow.

And it's down, deeper down --
Oh, it comes from deeper down;
It is flowing, ever flowing, in a free, unstinted measure
From the silent hidden places where the old earth hides her treasure --
Where the old earth hides her treasures deeper down.

And it's clear away the timber, and it's let the water run:
How it glimmers in the shadow, how it flashes in the sun!
By the silent bells of timber, by the miles of blazing plain
It is bringing hope and comfort to the thirsty land again.

Flowing down, further down;
It is flowing deeper down
To the tortured thirsty cattle, bringing gladness in its going;
Through the droughty days of summer it is flowing, ever flowing --
It is flowing, ever flowing, further down.

Watch and listen: YouTube: Song of the Artesian Water (Penny Davies & Roger Ilott
https://youtu.be/Zq5xdAaUBVg

4. You are now to draw a Creative Response to one scene or line from the “Song Of The Artesian Water”- by Banjo Paterson in your notebook.

Reflection.

What is this poem about?
Did you like the poem or the song better? Why?

6. With your partner share your creative response.

Put your creative responses up on the walls of your classroom and don't forget to take a photo for your parents or carers.

Secondary - Extension

6. Look at the following Landline Great Artesian Basin November 2013 Video video