Problem Solving with Green Infrastructure

Lauren Madden

In this activity, students design a watershed and test how runoff is impacted based on human design decisions.

This learning activity takes two 50 minute class periods.

We feel that the grade level could be 4-8, rather than just grade 4.

This Activity builds on the following concepts of Climate Literacy.

Click a topic below for supporting information, teaching ideas, and sample activities.

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Excellent hands-on lesson to discuss green infrastructure.
Educators might want to incorporate the resources given into the lessons more. For example, showing a video of a flood, or showing pictures of GI examples (rain barrels, solar panels, etc.).
It would be interesting to discuss rainfall for specific geographic areas.

Students are engaged in engineering their own scientific model of green infrastructure for their watershed in an attempt to mitigate pollution and runoff.
Students learn about the importance of green infrastructure (GI, i.e., recharges the ground water and conserves water). Using various materials students make observations about how their models perform during an assimilated rainstorm.
Background materials are clearly identified and useful.
Passed initial science review - expert science review pending.

In this activity, students are able to test and build watersheds.
There is a second day where students scaffold their learning by retesting methods that worked but with a budget constraint. This lesson plan and teaching sequence is a great way to engage students in design.
This resource could be two separate lessons, the first focused on creating a GI model and the second working with financial constraints of building materials/budget.
Neither lesson is super well developed but necessary information is given such as background information, a list of vocabulary, step-by-step instructions on how to create a GI model, and examples of costs of materials. Students are involved in hands-on learning by creating their own GI models.

This resource engages students in using scientific data.
See other data-rich activities

This is a simple lesson plan that is easy to follow. However, it could take time to set up and clean because of the construction, experimenting, and materials used.

Entered the Collection: August 2025 | Last Reviewed: May 2025