A Case Study of Climate, Justice, and Water Chemistry in Upper Klamath Lake for an Introductory Chemistry Course

Carol Higginbotham, Central Oregon Community College, Chemistry

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Initial Publication Date: June 15, 2024

Summary

Students watch a documentary and video about Klamath Lake in Oregon, USA, where there is conflict about use of the water in the lake, as water supply is reduced and water quality is made worse by climate change. The documentary and video highlight how marginalized tribal communities living near the lake advocate for themselves and create positive social change. Within the context of this case study, students learn solution chemistry, specifically solute, solvent, dilution, and concentration units, as well as the chemistry of poor water quality.

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Learning Goals

1. Recognize the impacts of human activity on water quality in Upper Klamath Lake, both from direct impacts on the lake (agricultural runoff, drawing water from the lake for irrigation) and indirect impacts (reduced snowpack and increased evaporation from climate change).

2. Use concepts and terminology related to solution chemistry to describe water quality impacts, specifically solute, solvent, dilution, and concentration units.

3. Identify systemic drivers of inequality as they relate to the situation with Upper Klamath Lake.

4. Practice critical self and social consciousness.

5. Describe connections between identity and community in the Klamath Lake case study.

6. Describe ways that marginalized communities can advocate for themselves and create positive social change.

Context for Use

This activity was designed for an introductory chemistry course with a class size of 20 students at a two-year college, specifically the first course in a year-long General, Organic, and Biochemistry course series. This course is typically taken by non-STEM majors, primarily students pursuing a career in the health sciences or other students earning general education credits. For many students, it is the only college-level chemistry course they will take. This activity could easily be adapted for use in a similar course at a four-year college or university, with smaller group work occurring during smaller laboratory or breakout sessions with graduate teaching assistance, or for use in a high school chemistry course. Students encounter this activity as they begin studying solution chemistry, which occurs about 80% of the way through the course. While students need little background in chemistry to complete this module, a working knowledge of the characterization of matter (homogeneous and heterogeneous mixtures, pure substances, elements), the ability to take a particulate-view of substances (molecules, ions, and atoms surrounded by solvent), and knowledge of bond polarity and molecular polarity as it relates to particulate in a solution is helpful. Any student with these skills will be able to understand and learn from the activity, which therefore could be adapted for a variety of other courses and contexts. To use the activity in a General Chemistry course taken by STEM majors, an instructor could build in more quantitative content, such as quantifying concentrations and solubility. My introductory course has a hybrid modality, with in-person classroom meetings as well as significant online asynchronous work completed by students outside class time. This activity requires about 2 hours of work by students outside class and 30 minutes of class time. The activity could be adapted to a fully in-person class, with videos shown during class, and would require about 2.5 hours to fully implement during class time. Students need access to a device and an internet connection to watch two videos and do research about water quality. I use the Canvas online Learning Management System (LMS) to distribute assignments, collect student work, and offer feedback on assignments completed by students, but access to an LMS is also not necessary if the activity is implemented in-person in a classroom. If implemented in a classroom, instead of using an LMS, instructors could print out handouts for distribution to students during class, collect assignments completed by students on paper during class, and provide written feedback on each assignment.

Description and Teaching Materials

Instructor Class Preparation: Check web links to the documentary (Step 1) and the video (Step 3), prepare assignments either by uploading to an online learning management system (I use Canvas) where students can access them or printing them out and bringing them to class.

Step 1: Klamath Lake Documentary Assignment (1 hour). Students begin this activity with an assignment that they complete on their own before class, which includes watching a documentary and writing their answers to questions about civic engagement observed in the documentary, which they bring with them to class for a class discussion (see Step 2). For this assignment, students watch Climate Change Is Exposing the Racism Behind an Oregon Water War, which is a 26-minute-long documentary that features Joey Gentry, a member of one of the Klamath Tribes, who returns to her hometown in Oregon as conflict over water use from Klamath Lake is growing intense. Please note that I post a "Content Warning" as part of this assignment (see "Klamath Lake Documentary Assignment.docx" Word file below) to inform students, before they watch the video, that there are things said at points in the documentary that may be upsetting. In particular, I note that a local farmer (Leroy Gienger) says things when he is interviewed in the documentary that are disparaging of the people of the Klamath Tribes and that, if this is uncomfortable for students, that they can skip the sections where he is interviewed. (I note for students, in the Word file provided below, the specific sections of the documentary where he speaks, so they have detailed information about the sections they may want to skip.) The setting for the documentary is Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon's second-largest lake in the arid south-central part of the state. This lake is about two hours south of my college (by car), so some students know the area well and most are familiar with the lake. Water quality in the lake has deteriorated due to agricultural practices, and two species of fish endemic to the lake (C'waam and Koptu) and vital to the Klamath Tribes are threatened with extinction. Joey Gentry notes in the documentary that "Our creation story tells us that if the fish die, the people die." The fish are First Foods for the Native people in the area. Drought, attributed to climate change, is exacerbating longstanding conflicts over water rights. The people living in the region are trying to find solutions. A history of racism and oppression of Native people in the region, and frustration from farmers who believe they have a right to the water, cause tensions to run high. The documentary tells the story of a community-led group that is attempting to address these issues, with limited success. However, the documentary shows how the Klamath Tribes find a way to raise their voice and the worst outcomes are avoided, which allows students to see that the actions being taken to address the issues are making a difference. I provide students with a list of questions about the documentary and tell them that we will discuss the questions in the next class session. The questions focus students' attention on civic engagement, particularly by Joey Gentry and the people of the community facing climate injustices, and the powerful people and organizations they attempt to influence. I also ask students to identify a common concern among the various parties (farmers, government, indigenous community) in the disagreements surrounding Klamath Lake, as well as how science plays a role in understanding the issues facing them and in addressing those issues through civic engagement.

klamath_lake_documentary_assignment.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 20kB Jun5 24)

Step 2: Klamath Lake Chemistry Research Activity (1 hour). This step begins in class and ends with an activity that students complete outside class. I begin the class session by asking students if they have heard of Klamath Lake prior to watching the documentary, if they know where it is located, if anyone in the class has connections to impacted communities, and to summarize the experiences shown in the video. Following this, I lead a class discussion using the questions provided to the students in Step 1 (see "Klamath Lake Documentary Assignment.docx" Word file), which are centered on civic engagement. This discussion leads to thinking about the problems with the water in Klamath Lake. I give a presentation of what is meant by "poor water quality," which, students know from the documentary, is affecting the fish in Klamath Lake. During this presentation, I provide an overview of the factors responsible for poor water quality, including water temperature, increased nutrient inputs, degraded riparian areas along the lake shore, toxins from algal blooms, low oxygen levels from eutrophication, changes in water quantity due to reduced snowpack and changes in snowmelt patterns, and increased evaporation due to higher temperatures. Following the presentation, I lead a class discussion about the factors that affect water quality by asking students to think of additional factors that may negatively impact the water, which of those factors are a direct result of human activity, and which factors are controllable. (The presentation and discussion that follows it are detailed in the "Water Quality Presentation and Discussion.docx" Word file below.) A full class discussion works well for my class size, which is 20 students, but it might be better to use small group discussion for larger class sizes. I also ask students about the varying needs, with respect to the water quality, of the different communities that rely on the lake and whether they think all groups have the same level of need to have nutrient levels reduced.

Following this discussion, I give a second presentation intended to help students think about the water in Klamath Lake as a chemist would. I present some of the chemistry concepts that they are learning, including definitions of solution, solvent, solutes, and concentration, as well as information about dilutions and the solubility of different chemicals. I use Klamath Lake (a solution) as the context for learning these concepts: water (H2O) is the solvent,with a variety of solutesthat are important to the water quality present in varying concentrations. During the presentation, I use dissolved oxygen gas, cyanobacterial toxins, and phosphorous and nitrogen compounds and ions as examples of solutes. I explain how adding more water to the lake would dilute the solutes and how different chemicals have different solubilities, which I connect to the polarity of the substance (polarity is a concept they learned prior to this activity). At this point in the term, and during this activity, I do not introduce the quantitative aspects of concentration or dilution. (I do this later in the term, after this activity.) Instead, I introduce students to the concept of concentration and that there are different units used to express it (e.g., g/mL, mol/L, ppm, ppb), so that when they are working on the activity after class, they are aware of the different types of concentration units they might find. For dilution, I tell students how this is something that can reduce solute concentration, but I do not go beyond that to dilution calculations (e.g., the dilution equation M1V1=M2V2) as part of this activity. (I do this later in the term, after this activity.)

Students use the information presented to complete an activity outside of class. I post the activity to Canvas (the LMS I use) and students upload their work to Canvas when they are finished. The "Thinking Like a Chemist" activity asks students to use and apply the chemistry concepts that I presented as they do internet research to answer a set of questions about Klamath Lake. The questions ask students to find information about "healthy" or desirable concentrations of solutes, which is not limited to the four that I used as examples during class (dissolved oxygen gas, cyanobacterial toxins, phosphorous, and nitrogen). They can research additional solutes if they wish. They are also asked whether it is the increase or decrease, in the concentration of each solute they researched, that causes the water quality issues in Klamath Lake, as well as how dilution of the lake water would affect pollution and how climate change causes solute concentrations to increase. (This last question is important because it addresses a common misconception that solutes evaporate. Although some volatile solutes do evaporate, most solutes in this case study, such as the phosphorus- and nitrogen-containing polyatomic ions, do not evaporate and are instead left behind. Only the solvent, H2O, evaporates and makes the solution more concentrated. Students often think all solutes evaporate.)

Water Quality Presentation & Discussion.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 16kB May25 24)

Thinking Like a Chemist Assignment.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 16kB May25 24)

Step 3: Seeking Just Solutions (30 minutes). Next, students watch an eight-minute-long video called Saving the C'waam, which was produced for a public relations and outreach effort by the Klamath and other tribes. It provides a hopeful message about how the issues at Klamath Lake might be addressed and how the Klamath and other tribes are addressing the problems they face, a message that I feel is a particularly important for concluding this activity, since the documentary they initially watch (Step 1) does not have a very hopeful ending. I ask students to look at this video as an example of civic engagement by the involved tribes. It shows how a community, who may be labeled as oppressed by people outside the community, is engaged and empowered in addressing the challenges they face, in a way that deserves attention. Messages like this often do not get included in the mainstream media, such as in reports by the local news channels, which have a tendency to portray the government and agricultural stakeholders as active participants, and the tribes as more passive participants, which they are not. The video shows a young person, who is the main speaker in the video, taking action to help address the challenges faced by her community; seeing a young person take action can be empowering for young students. After watching the video, students answer reflection questions about ways they think the Klamath and other tribes connected to the lake are advocating for themselves, and also, via this video, raising awareness and advocating for positive social change.

seeking_just_solutions_assignment.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 16kB Jun5 24)

Teaching Notes and Tips

I have polled students to ask about their level of familiarity with the conflicts and issues at Upper Klamath Lake. Although the Lake is only two hours south of my college, my poll results show that only about 5% of students in my courses have read about the situation and feel it is important to them, about 11% have heard about the conflicts and haven't thought much about them, and about 82% of students in my courses are not familiar with what is going on at Upper Klamath Lake. When first implementing an activity like this, polling students like this can be helpful to get a feel for where your students are coming from and their starting point at the beginning of this activity. I was surprised that so few students had heard of the conflicts and issues at Upper Klamath Lake, given that it is relatively near our college and community.

Including the phrase "climate injustice" in this document accomplishes two things. First, it focuses students on the disproportionate impacts to various people affected by the situation with the Lake, without an absolute 'winner takes all' framing. All people near Klamath are impacted, but the impacts are unequal. Second, the use of justice/injustice evokes fairness, a concept that many students value deeply, no matter what their position is in relation to a conflict. For students who might naturally relate to one or another party in this particular conflict situation, thinking about actions taken to achieve fairness allows room for their participation in crafting the solution, rather than resisting proposed changes from others on 'another side.' Specifically, students from farming communities who participate in government water distribution schemes will be able to disengage from the loss of water claims, if a proposed solution appeals to their sense of what is fair.


Assessment

1. Recognize the impacts of human activity on water quality in Upper Klamath Lake, both from direct impacts on the lake (agricultural runoff, drawing water from the lake for irrigation) and indirect impacts (reduced snowpack and increased evaporation from climate change).

I use Question 2 in the "Water Quality Presentation & Discussion.docx" Word file to assess this learning goal in a formative way, by listening to student responses during the second class discussion in Step 2. I provide immediate feedback to students on this learning goal during this discussion.

2. Use concepts and terminology related to solution chemistry to describe water quality impacts, specifically solute, solvent, dilution, and concentration units.

I assess this learning goal with Questions 1 through 4 in the "Thinking About the Water Like a Chemistry.docx" Word file. This is the research activity that they complete on their own outside class at the end of Step 2.

3. Identify systemic drivers of inequality as they relate to the situation with Upper Klamath Lake.

I use Question 5 in "Klamath Lake Documentary Assignment.docx" Word file to assess this learning goal. Students write their answer to this question and bring it to class for a discussion, so I use formative assessment based on student responses to this question shared during class. I provide immediate feedback to students on this learning goal during this discussion.

4. Practice critical self and social consciousness.

I assess this learning goal by observing students practicing these things as they watch the documentary (Step 1) and participate in the subsequent class discussion about this documentary (Step 2), as well as during class discussions of the chemistry of Klamath Lake.

5. Describe connections between identity and community in the Klamath Lake case study.

I use Question 7 in "Klamath Lake Documentary Assignment.docx" Word file to assess this learning goal. Students write their answer to this question and bring it to class for a discussion, so I use formative assessment based on student responses to this question shared during class. I provide immediate feedback to students on this learning goal during this discussion.

6. Describe ways that marginalized communities can advocate for themselves and create positive social change.

I use students' responses to Questions 1 through 4 in "Klamath Lake Documentary Assignment.docx" Word file during the class discussion in Step 2, as well as Questions 2(a) and 2(b) in the "Seeking Just Solutions Assignment.docx" Word file for the assignment in Step 3, to assess this learning goal.

References and Resources

This work is supported in part by NSF IUSE grant DUE 2043535.

Climate Change Is Exposing the Racism Behind an Oregon Water War (26-minute video by Al Jazeera's Faultline series on YouTube)

Saving the C'waam (8-minute video on YouTube)