publichealth_highschool

Museum Lesson on Public Health of Water
Title: “Epoch in Sanitation”

**Guiding Question: How is water a public health issue?**


 * // Introduction //**

**//Today you are going to put together pieces of a public health mystery: With the information you are given, how can you ensure that Boston's water supply is safe to drink?//**


 * // Task //**

**//The date is XXX//**

**//You are taking on the role of George Whipple, biologist at the Chestnut Hill Pumping Station. With the water quality testing and other information at your disposal, what would you recommend about Boston's drinking water supply and why?//**

**//What would you recommend for the future?//**

**//How would what you've learned about about historic Boston connect to water and public health concerns today in the United States and the world?//**

=**// Lesson Process //**=

Intro: [whole group discussion -- 3 min]
Examine this quote from Desmond Fitzgerald, the Supervisor of the Chestnut Hill High Service Pumping Station:

“…as we progress and find that we can control the quality of the water by our own acts, we realize it is a wicked thing to turn water containing a large amount of organic matter into a city or town for people to drink – children, invalids and people whose constitutions are too weak to overcome the effects of bad water. I think we should realize the responsibility that rests on us as superintendents and engineers to do all that we can to raise the standard; to insist that a city or town should have good water and that they should judiciously spend enough to make it good.” from the 1895 annual meeting of the New England Water Works Association

What is Desmond Fitzgerald saying and why is he saying this?

Now, for Step ## to Step ##, we are going to send you out (as a team) to tour the Museum. Your faciltator will introduce you to key concepts and information. At each station on the museum floor, there will be additional information, either as a display or with hands on materials. See how you can connect what you find with the questions of your mission.

[NB -- We're assuming you're instructor has explained public health in general. If not, go here for a definition and the site of the American Society of Public Heath (be sure to watch the Flash video) for more information.]

Museum Tour [35-45 minutes total]

 * Step 1 [8 mins]**

Watch the Museum's **introductory video** -- what clues does it give you about the story of Boston's water supply?

Now break into two teams of 8 [or 3 groups of 5]. In your team, make sure at least two people take on the roles of scribes, another as timekeeper, and another as spokesperson. A museum facilitator will take you to different stations around the museum. Your mission will be to learn as much as you can about each topic and be able to answer as best you can the question for that station. Then you will take you what you have learned and answer the overall essential question in a presentation to the whole group.

Note -- information may be in more than one place -- look sharp!


 * Step 2 -- Learning Stations [35 minutes] [5 minutes per]**

A. What Boston was like as an urban area in 1895 (and after)?

[urban growth maps population density shifts in city boundaries immigration numbers] [make sure they watch the video at the Leavitt station]

B. What Boston's water supply was and what was its demand for water?

[look at the historical maps and the MWRA system maps]

C. Why water is important to people?

[general discussion. also handout of water facts]

D. What would make the water supply unsafe -- and what past history of water supply problems would haunt waterworks operators in the 19th century?

[make sure they watch the video at the public health station. handouts of the Broad Street Pump. general discussion.]

E. Why the Waterworks was unique in its testing, and what it was testing for? In what other ways did the Chestnut Hill High Service Pumping Station screen for contaminants?

[Whipple station. Look through microscopes at samples. Look at filtration and testing arrays. Look at Whipple's book. Examine screen room. Look at aqueducts and inflow and outflow piping diagrams. Handout of Whipple's testing results.]

F. How did the pumps themselves affect the water supply?

[look at the stats on how much water was pumped. ask them to consider what impact moving a lot of bad water would do. (Example of Philadelphia, the Schuylkill River, and the Fairmount Water Works http://www.fairmountwaterworks.org/about.php?sec=3 )

G. What other changes in Boston and the world affected the water supply?

[availability of showers, bathtubs, indoor toilets, and washing machines] [rise of skyscrapers] [Great Fire of 1872]


 * Step 3 -- Additional questions**

What additional questions do you have in mind? Ask your facilitator. Then keep the answers in mind

III. Poster Presentation [30 minutes]
Go upstairs to the Overlook room. There are two poster-making stations for you to make your own museum displays.

Before we do this, let's talk about museum exhibits: What makes a display interesting to look at? Then let's apply this knowledge to your own display creation.

Using what you've learned, the additional documents and pictures available, make a poster that will represent the key points your group wants to make about water supply and public health. You will have 22 minutes to make your poster, and 4 minutes for each group (8 minutes total) to present.

Here is the main question to consider: How is water a public health issue?

Each group will be given photographs and documents that reflect information you learned on the tour. Each of you will be given a photo analysis worksheet to help create your display.

Using these photos try to show how the Chestnut Hill High Service Pumping Station [now the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum] helped Boston maintain a clean water supply.

After looking and examining your photos, try to look for themes. Themes are ideas or topics that we use to group objects or pictures. Try to tell a story that shows how the waterworks maintained public health.

When you are putting together your display, please remember to think about the visitors looking at your display. Remember to label your photographs clearly.

Title your exhibit. Use the art materials to add graphics as you desire.

When your display is completed, each group will appoint a curator to explain the exhibit (jn 4 minutes or less!). The whole group will "tour" your displays.

IV. Group Discussion and Wrap Up [6 minutes]
What connections to your classroom and the world do you see? What questions do you still have?


 * // Conclusion //**

Water supply is important to the public health for all the reasons you have explained. What other considerations or systems are important to the public health as well? What will you do to help others understand what you now know?


 * // Extension Activity //**

Now that you have learned about how water supply can be an issue for public health with the example of Boston c 1895, look at other places and other times in the United States and the world.

What is the story of the water supply and public health in England in the 18th and 19th century?

What was the story of water in other locales in the United States in the 19th century? In the 20th century?

What agencies focus on the issue of water supply and public health around the world today?

What would you recommend we do as a global society?

[Your instructor will receive a list of NGOs and hotlinks so you can do more research.]


 * // Assessment //**


 * // Additional Notes //**

For a single group, or for classroom presentation, use the following order: Part I -- Why do people need water? Part II -- What can make water unsafe? Part III -- What does urban growth and industrialization do the water supply? Part IV -- What steps can be taken to protect the water supply? Part V -- Where do we go from here?


 * // Resources //**

http://books.google.com/books?id=l3AZAQAAIAAJ&lpg=PA1&ots=rKxgO-eKxk&dq=1895%20annual%20meeting%20of%20the%20New%20England%20Water%20Works%20Association&pg=PA204#v=onepage&q&f=false





http://books.google.com/books?id=kcJIAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PA85&ots=I5TEDJqPZi&dq=Annual%20Report%20of%20the%20Metropolitan%20Water%20Board%20of%20January%201899&pg=PA251#v=onepage&q=sample&f=false





http://books.google.com/books?id=7GLSg9RWON0C&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q&f=false



In bringing this preface to a close the author wishes to express his conviction that the micrology of water is going to play an increasingly important part in the science of sanitation The demand for clean water is growing Popular standards of purity are rising Our cities need water of such quality that the people not only can drink it with safety but will drink it with pleasure Safety first is as good a motto for the water supply service as it is for railroad service but safe water that is not also clean loses psychologically much of its value In the interest of clean water it is hoped that the study of the microscopic organisms will not be confined to specialists but will be undertaken by all superintendents of water works who are in charge of storage reservoirs It is for such men and for students of water analysis that this book has been especially prepared GCW Cambr1dge Mass January 1 1914 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION xiii

p. 288

http://books.google.com/books?id=7GLSg9RWON0C&pg=PA298&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U0YBluN01Xc94eeNDdjrTiSzFtCiA&ci=48%2C135%2C873%2C1285&edge=0