Mississippi Science ENV.4.5
The Standard
- ENV.4
- Students will demonstrate an understanding of the interdependence of human sustainability and the environment.
Enrichment: Use an engineering design process to define a problem, design, construct, evaluate, and improve a device or method to reduce or prevent human impact on a natural resource (e.g., build a water filter, design an air purifier, develop a method to prevent parking lot pollution from entering a watershed).*
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Human Sustainability
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students identify a natural resource harmed by human activity and set a measurable goal for reducing the harm. They build and test a device or method, then revise it using their results.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can explain how a design should reduce pollution and measure its performance against an untreated sample. They can use test results to justify one change and retest it under the same conditions.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think clearer water is safe to drink, though a simple filter can leave dissolved pollutants or germs. They may change the water volume between tests and mistake the result for an improvement.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: A runoff filter lets you see 2 grid lines through muddy water before filtering and 6 afterward. Name one change to the filter, one condition to keep the same during a retest, and one pollutant the grid test cannot detect.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Pour equal amounts of soil-clouded water through two bottle filters with different gravel and sand layers, then count visible grid lines behind each sample.
Ask: Which filter would better protect a stream after a storm, and what evidence from the grid test supports your claim?
Give pairs filter diagrams and test results; have them choose one change and predict how it will affect clarity in a retest.
Mark a school parking lot and nearby stream on a map, then sketch where a sediment trap could intercept runoff.
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Printable ENV.4.5 Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to ENV.4.5, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.
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Enrichment: Use an engineering design process to develop a possible solution to an environmental issue that currently exists in an ecosystem. *
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