Students use maps to identify local watersheds and their forest cover. They evaluate the extent to
which their community’s water supply is affected by forests.
For the complete activity and more like this, purchase the Forests, Water & People activity collection at Shop.PLT.org and/or attend a professional development training in your state.
Below are some supporting resources for this activity.
Download the copyright-free student pages that are included with this activity:
Backgrounder - Exploring Forests to Faucets 2.0 (PDF)
The following tools and resources may be used to enhance the activity.
This full-color graphic from the USDA Forest Service details the importance of forested landscapes. Forests help maintain clean water in streams, lakes, and rivers. We rely on this water for drinking, recreation, and for supporting fish and wildlife.
The Forest to Faucets 2.0 assessment uses geospatial modeling to identify watersheds in the conterminous United States that are most important to surface drinking water, the ability to produce clean water, forest ownership (public or private), and potential threats to water yield from insects and diseases, wildfire, land use or climate change. Review this report to learn more about how the data collected and the associated online assessment tool can be used by forest managers to evaluate the effect of their management on the water supply, and that water consumers can use for considering potential threats upstream. Published February, 2022.
This map-making tool enables you to create a shaded relief map of different areas of the United States. Select one of the 3-Dimensional Elevation Program layers to add shaded relief elements to explore elevation. To include forested areas, add the Land Cover layer to your map. See the drop-down Legend menu for the information about what each land cover color represents.
This U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website is designed to provide the public with information about the condition of their local waters. Water quality information is displayed on 3 scales; community, state, and national. Note: more recent or more detailed water information may exist that is not yet available through EPA databases or other sources.
Go on an adventure to learn more about innovations being made to protect and manage clean water! Produced by EarthEcho International, the video Water By Design: Water from Afar investigates reservoirs of water and the technology employed to measure and maintain it. One example examines how NASA uses innovative technology to measure snow and represent the availability of fresh water that comes from snow melts. Check out the video to learn even more about how water is stored, filtered, and brought to your home. EarthEcho’s Educator Resources are a collection of videos, lesson plans, and other materials designed to support high-quality classroom experiences and assist educators as they equip young people to explore and protect their local natural resources.
This video, The Chemistry of Clean Water, from the American Chemistry Council demonstrates some of the ways chemistry keeps the water supply clean. Chemistry helps to purify, protect, and conserve water for safe consumption. The video helps students draw connections to elementary chemistry concepts and STEM.
This web toolkit is designed to help middle, high school, and college educators and students – as well as citizens, conservationists, municipal decision-makers, and researchers – advance their knowledge and stewardship of fresh water. Developed by the Stroud Water Research Center, the toolkit enables users to share watershed-model scenarios, watershed-monitoring data, and watershed-management stories as an open, collaborative community. Learn more and access archived training webinars for educators at www.wikiwatershed.org.
The US Forest Service created a complete Forest Atlas of the United States. It covers everything from tree pollen count to owl habitats to agroforestry practices, using a range of the Forest Service’s resources. Use this in your classroom to give your students a comprehensive understanding of what American forests have to offer!
To prepare for changes along Washington state’s Nisqually River, tribal leaders, private partners, and government agencies are working to help the watershed and its inhabitants adapt. Read more about how agencies work together in this article.
This PowerPoint Presentation from the Maine Forest Service discusses the water cleaning power of the worlds forest.
EPA’s new EnviroAtlas tool is designed to help communities and researchers make informed planning and policy decisions related to the environment and ecosystems. EnviroAtlas provides datasets and interactive tools to allow users to explore the many benefits people receive from nature, often referred to as ecosystem services. EnviroAtlas includes over 300 data layers, letting users analyze how decisions affect ecosystems and their ability to provide goods and services. Key components include:
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