WorksheetPremium

Green From Space: Monitoring Algae Blooms on Lake Calloway

Grade 6 earth science: satellite chlorophyll data track algae blooms from farm runoff, then students judge plans to cut phosphorus within a budget.

Grade 6ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned toMS-ESS3-3

Buy this worksheet: $1.50

Or unlock every Premium worksheet with Premium

PrintUnlock to print

Answer keyUnlock to see answers

Assign to classUnlock to assign with a class code

What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
11 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 6
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use satellite and water sample data to monitor how fertilizer runoff affects a lake.
Students evaluate plans to reduce phosphorus runoff against a goal and constraints.

How to use

Read paragraph 2 together so students can trace the path from field to fish; then let teams compare the options in Table 2 before they write the open response.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

MS-ESS3-3

Design a way to monitor and reduce a human impact on the environment.

Preview

OwlSheets.com

Name Date

Green From Space: Monitoring Algae Blooms on Lake Calloway

Use satellite and stream data to monitor fertilizer runoff and pick a plan to reduce it.

Watching the lake from space

Read the passage, Table 1 and the graph, then answer questions 1–6.

The Lake Calloway Project

1Each summer, a space agency's Earth science office runs a program in which middle school teams help scientists study satellite images of Earth. This year, Wren Odhiambo's team worked with Dr. Matthias Coelho on Lake Calloway, a lake in farm country. The lake, the people and the numbers are made up, but they are based on real lakes.

2Algae are tiny living things that make their own food using sunlight. Like crops, they need nutrients such as phosphorus to grow. When rain washes extra fertilizer or manure off fields, streams can carry the phosphorus into a lake. In warm, sunny weather, algae can then multiply so fast that the water turns green. This is called an algae bloom. When the algae die, decomposers break them down and use up much of the oxygen in the water, and fish may die. Some blooms also make substances that can harm people and pets.

3A satellite passes over the lake every few days. Its camera measures the colors of sunlight reflected by the water. Scientists use the amount of green to estimate how much chlorophyll, the green pigment in algae, is in the water, in micrograms per liter (µg/L). The office posts a bloom warning for any part of the lake above 25 µg/L. Once a month, a boat crew also collects water at a few spots and measures its chlorophyll in a lab.

4Three streams flow into three bays of the lake. Corn Creek drains cropland and has no strips of plants along its banks. Willow Creek also drains cropland, but farmers there keep strips of grass 30 m wide along the creek. Pine Run drains mostly forest. Each month, the team also measured the phosphorus in each stream, in milligrams per liter (mg/L).

5The county wants to cut the phosphorus in Corn Creek to 0.08 mg/L or less. The plan can cost at most $200,000 per year, and at most 5% of the cropland along the creek can be taken out of crops. The team gathered estimates for several options (Table 2).