WATER, OUR VITAL ELEMENT

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of these activities, you will be able to:

• Understand the causes and consequences of  waterpollution.
• Recognize the importance of water as our vital element.
• Develop listening activities to get specific information.

TIMING: online: 100 minutes            offline: 55 minutes

ACTIVATING YOUR PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Click on the link below and you will find a KWL chart which will help you to activate your prior knowledge. 

Remember that the first column of the kwl chart is related to knowledge you have regarding water pollution, second one is about specific knowledge you would like to acquire and third one is about the knowledge you acquired after doing all the activities and tasks of this blog. Please download it, complete it and finally post it on your portfolio. 

LINK:  http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/pdf/kwl.pdf

PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITY

Please use your headphones and try to focus your attention while you are watching the following video. This will help you to learn more about water contamination.

TASK: Write down the ideas you got from the video on your student portfolio. 

LISTENING: I suggest reading the following suggestions before watching the video again.

Listening for Meaning

To extract meaning from a listening text, you will need to follow four basic steps:

• Figure out the purpose for listening. Activate background knowledge of the topic in order to predict or anticipate content and identify appropriate listening strategies.

• Attend to the parts of the listening input that are relevant to the identified purpose and ignore the rest. This selectivity enables students to focus on specific items in the input and reduces the amount of information they have to hold in short-term memory in order to recognize it.

• Select top-down and bottom-up strategies that are appropriate to the listening task and use them flexibly and interactively. Students' comprehension improves and their confidence increases when they use top-down and bottom-up strategies simultaneously to construct meaning.

• Check comprehension while listening and when the listening task is over. Monitoring comprehension helps students detect inconsistencies and comprehension failures, directing them to use alternate strategies.

 Retrieved from http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/listening/stratlisten.htm


Now it is time you watch the above video again and try to answer the following questions. Remember write your answers in your portfolio. 

1. According to the video,  what is water pollution?

2. What is the most common consequence of water pollution?

3. Mention some chemical elements which can cause water contamination.

4. Which natural phenomena can cause changes in water quality?

5. Video mentions different kind of water pollution, give an example of NPS pollution.

* Check your answers at the end of this site.


MAKING REFLECTIONS

Reflect on the following statements:

1. Water contamination could be avoided.

2. Human being has generated water pollution.

3. Water pollution is a problem only of developed countries.

Then prepare a presentation showing your conclusions on  http://es.calameo.com/.Remember post the link of your product on your studnet's portfolio.

SUGGESTING

Think in possible solutions to water contamination and share your opinions on:http://wallwisher.com/wall/j16ek92y0g

The following videos can help you on your task.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy6T2ermlPQ
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3i186P2OH

GAP ACTIVITY

After watching and listening carefully the video work with a partner to describe causes and consequences of water pollution in your country. Design a chart and post it on your portfolio.

SELF-ASSESSMENT

Reflect about your performance, copy the chart below on your portfolio and put a tick according to your reflections. 

HOW WELL CAN YOU	VERY WELL	OK	A LITTLE
Understand the main idea of the audio
Express personal opinions taking into account audio’s content.
Get specific information from an audio.

Please click on the link and answer the survey. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?fromEmail=true&formkey=dGNURUtJWVZjR3V3aTAyandORVVDX1E6MQ

THANKS FOR YOUR TIME. SEE YOU SOON

Answer Key
1. Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies such as lakes, rivers, or oceans.
2. Damaging not only to individual species and population but also to the natural biological communities.
3. Calcium, Sodium, iron, manganese.
4. Volcanoes, storms, algae blooms and earthquakes.
5. Leaching out of nitrogen compounds from fertilized agricultural lands.



REFERENCES


Reinders, H. & Lewis, M. (2005). How well do self-access call materials support self-directed learning?. The JALT CALL Journal. University of Auckland. New Zealand. Volume 1 N° 2, p. 46-53.

Tomlinson, B. (2010). Principles and procedures for self-access materials.Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 1(2), 72-86. Online Available: http://sisaljournal.org/archives/sep10/tomlinson/