Ecology Science Debate Series Science Policy 

Could Agriculture Save US Water Supply?

Population growth and climate change are making water an even more scarce resource. Does agriculture have the power to reduce water shortages? By Mackenzie Myers This article is part of a series about key science policy issues. Please use these articles to become an informed voter, ask political candidates about the issues, and put every candidate on record about science. This time of year in California’s Central Valley, it’s easy to see where the Golden State gets its nickname. Golden sun shines on golden grasses of rolling golden hills, parched…

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Ecology SciStarter Blog 

Protect Local Waterways with the EarthEcho Water Challenge

By Sean Russell On March 22, the 2019 EarthEcho Water Challenge began empowering young people and community members around the world to monitor and protect local water resources in their communities. Initiated in 2003 as the World Water Monitoring Challenge (in celebration of the U.S. Clean Water Act), this year-round, global program is designed to connect anyone, of any age, to their local water resources through water quality monitoring. Participants share their water quality data through the global EarthEcho Water Challenge online database, contributing to our understanding of the world’s…

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Biology Chemistry Environment 

Learning Where Water Comes From, With Isotopes

Researchers track the origins of water across the world, and how it varies over time and place, by analyzing its hydrogen and oxygen isotopes. by Nicholas Dove and Alyssa Abbey Did you ever wonder where your water is coming from? For many of us, drinking a glass of water is as easy as turning on the tap. But, the journey of water from a single raindrop to your drinking glass starts long before then. Water can actually travel hundreds of miles or take hundreds of years before it finally reaches…

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Citizen Science Environment Health SciStarter Blog 

Empowering Communities to Examine Lead Exposure with Crowd the Tap

By Bradley Allf Lead pipes for transporting water have been a fixture of modern civilization for more than two thousand years.  Ancient Romans channeled water into homes and bathhouses through lead piping. In fact, the Latin word for lead, plumbum, is where we get the English word “plumbing.” Yet we have also long recognized that lead can have a serious impact on our health. Vitrivius, who lived during the first century BCE, wrote at length about the physical harm caused by lead exposure, concluding that “water should therefore on no…

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