Groundwater

Videos

"A Billion Gallons a Day" - NYC Water Supply [NY Times]: A well produced look at NYC's amazing fresh water supply infrastructure.
6 min 45 sec

Global Fresh Water Overview [NASA Goddard]: A simple, animation-based video that gives a pretty good overview of fresh water and how it's used in the US.
2 min 49 sec

What is Groundwater [KQED Quest] Lighthearted animation shows the basics of how groundwater works. A bit simplistic feeling, but still good.
5 min 10 sec

How Do We Get Water From Underground? [D News] A pretty detailed overview of groundwater in this concise video.
2 min 55 sec

Groundwater Flow Model [Practical Engineering]: Coming at it from an engineering angle, this is the best groundwater flow model video on YouTube that we've found. 3 min 48 sec

How a Water Well is Drilled [American Ground Water Trust] A comprehensive look at how wells are drilled as well as the complete workings of a well-based home water system. Low excitement factor for sure, but the information is on point.
10 min

Porosity and Permeability [GeoScience Videos]: Created with classroom teachers in mind, this video does a good job explaining porosity and permeability. I like the simple experimental methods they use. Done by the folks at the North Carolina State's Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Science Dept.
6 min 26 sec

Surface Tension of Water - The Floating Paper Clip [Gazdonian Productions]: See how water's high surface tension allows you to float a standard paper clip on an almost overflowing glass.
3 min 29 sec

More on water's surface tension: How Many Drops Can You Fit on a Penny. Watch it here.
1 min 56 sec

Drops on a penny

Capillary Action Time Lapse [Gazdonian Productions]: Capillary action definitely looks pretty cool in time lapse.
1 min 25 sec

I also have a version that is just the raw footage without commentary for presenting NGSS phenomena.

Slow Motion Water Droplet [The Tykjen]: Researchers at MIT show how surprisingly complex and amazing a simple drop of water actually is. (note: the video ends abruptly)
1 min 34 sec

More Slow-Mo Water Drops: The Slo Mo Guys also have a great video of this [link]. I love these guys.
3 min 32 sec

Slo Mo Guys

Q-Drum Water Transporter [Trifilm Inc.]: A wonderfully simple idea that makes the arduous task of transporting water long distances much easier. It's an eye-opening moment when students see how precious (and difficult to attain) water is in some parts of the world.
3 min 52 sec

Here's a video on the Hippo Roller, another water transporter based on the same concept.

Hippo Roller

The 2nd String: a bit more obscure or on-the-fringe of the topic. But still cool.

Permeable Pavement [Civil Engineering]: A super-cool video all around (and it helps to teach permeability as well as how pavement usually affects runoff). Students always love this one - a definite class favorite!
2 min 22 sec

For more detail on permeable pavement, check out this video which shows the rather intensive installation process.
7 mins 10 sec

How it Works: Water Tower [City of Bloomfield, MN]: This isn't going to blow anyone's doors off, but it gives a quick overview of municipal water towers.
2 min 20 sec

Techno-Bloc System of Permeable Pavement [Civil Engineering]: Promotional video for another permeable pavement system. This gives a good overview of the benefits of permeable pavement an how it works.
4 min 6 sec

The Groundwater Song [King County, WA]:  This is clearly geared toward grade school kids, but [surprisingly] high school kids really like it too. It's hokey, but I've been surprised over the years to see that kids do actually learn from this video. You never know what's gonna work sometimes...
3 min 41 sec

The official version is here.

YouTube version (lower quality) is here.

Other

How New York Gets Its Water [NY Times] This easy-reading infographic-ish article gives a good look at the engineering marvel that is the NYC water supply. A must-read for NYC students.

ONLINE QUIZ: Bottled Water or Tap: How Much Does Your Choice Matter? [NY Times]: This is more about the how environmentally unfriendly plastic bottles are than it is about water, but it's still an interesting quiz for pretty much anyone to take.