PfaRD Curriculum Unit Guide

Planting for a Rainy Day(PfaRD) Introduction:

Planting for a Rainy Day (PfaRD) is a unit of study designed to help students understand the interaction between Arizona environments and rainwater. During this unit students consider the stormwater challenges in developed environments compared to “natural” ones. Students explore how rainwater may be managed in and around communities. They design rain garden basins that can address drought/flooding issues by employing STEAM skills and academic practices. The big ideas of this learning unit are: 

1. Excessive heat, flooding, habitat loss, and water sustainability are concerns that exist in almost all developed/urban areas.
2. Find examples of these issues within the “watershed” of the school grounds.
3. Design a sustainable rain garden basin to mitigate excessive heat, flooding, and habitat loss. 

Students identify a “hot, dry” patch of pavement in their personal watershed (home/school/community) and determine storm water drainage patterns. By calculating the amount of runoff that can be collected in the area, and then applying rainwater harvesting and smart landscaping techniques, students will design an attractive water-wise rain-garden basin habitat that can help reduce flooding, support biodiversity and create a cooler, healthier community.

Unit Guiding Questions: 

How can we harvest rainwater to transform an impermeable plot of land into an outdoor oasis? 

Four Fields of Study | Objectives: 

WATER CYCLE - WATERSHED - GROUNDWATER - SUSTAINABILITY

– Define transpiration and evaporation to explain how these water cycle processes are related to plant and animal adaptations for water conservation and temperature management. 

– Identify native plants and animals that live in Arizona’s deserts and decide which native plants are appropriate for creating a water-wise, biodiverse healthy garden. 

– Analyze the “watershed and groundwater systems” of their school grounds, determining rainwater drainage patterns, surface porosity and temperatures, and places where water leaves the grounds or connects to groundwater. 

– Calculate the amount of rainwater that can be collected from roofs of varying sizes to develop strategies for storing and using rainwater while also implementing strategies for natural cooling and remediating “hot pockets” on school grounds.  

– Explore the connections between the processes of the water cycle, the urban watershed environment, and the groundwater system, in creating a rain garden basin that can also contribute to a healthy ecosystem/habitat and community. 

– Create design drawings for a water-wise garden with supporting details and documentation (species list, water use, plant hardiness, wildlife interaction, and seasonal implications) that support a water efficient, biodiverse desert urban landscape. 

Arizona Science & Other State Standards: 

• MS-LS2-4 Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.
• MS-ESS3-2 Analyze and interpret data on natural hazards to forecast future catastrophic events and inform the development of technologies to mitigate their effects.
• 8.E1U3.7 Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about data and historical patterns to predict natural hazards and other geological events.
• 8.E1U3.8 Construct and support an argument about how human consumption of limited resources impacts the biosphere.
• Elements of Earth and Space 8.E1U3.8 Construct and support an argument about how human consumption of limited resources impacts the biosphere.
• Elements of Earth and Space Plus HS+E.E1U1.5 Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information on the effect of water on Earth’s materials, surface processes, and groundwater systems.
• Elements of Earth and Space Plus HS+E.E1U3.9 Construct an explanation, based on evidence, for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.
• Elements of Earth and Space Plus HS+E.E1U3.10 Ask questions, define problems, and evaluate a solution to a complex problem, based on prioritized criteria and tradeoffs, that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics, as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.
• Elements of Life Plus HS+B.L4U1.2 Engage in argument from evidence that changes in environmental conditions or human interventions may change species diversity in an ecosystem.

PfaRD Unit of Study At-A-Glance:

Unit-Wide Teaching Resources:

* If you are unable to download any of the documents, please contact an AWF Team Member and we will assist you.