On this day, we like to not only teach our students about the global water crisis, but also about solutions. On a local level, we use this time to teach safe and conservative water habits. I am so lucky to work with a team of people who are always enthusiastic about interdisciplinary projects! Here is what we did this year to celebrate World Water Day.
Thursday, March 17
I introduced World Water Day to my social studies classes through an apple demonstration and a water commons simulation. I also wrote on the board, "we all live downstream." This was our essential question of the day. We opened up with this and then kept coming back to it after each activity.
For the apple demonstration, I brought the largest apple I could to each class and told the students it represented Earth. I asked them how much of the Earth is water, to which they quickly replied "75%!" So I cut away 1/4 of the apple and told them it represented the land on our planet. I picked up the other 3/4 and told them that it represented the water. We agreed it looked like a lot of water so we started to discuss how there could possibly be a water crisis? I cut a tiny sliver of the apple and told them that it represented the freshwater on our planet, 3%. Then, I cut 1/3 of that away. I asked why we couldn't drink it. 1/3 of our freshwater is locked up in glaciers and ice caps. Then I cut the remains 2/3 in half. I asked why we couldn't drink one half of what remained. The students promptly replied: pollution (we discussed what kinds of pollution exist), access, political boundaries, fear of attacks, etc. It was a great discussion and got us ready for the next few days. We also got to eat the sliced up apples! ...any excuse to give healthy food to students!
After the demo, I followed up with this water commons lab.
Water Commons Lab
After lab, we discussed, again, what it means to say that "we all live downstream." I think the message really began to sink in. All the pieces were in place for World Water Day.
Friday, March 18
Again, I can't thank my team enough for jumping on board. Our science teacher gave all of the students a weekend task. They had to track their water usage for one weekend. She found this great handout in a Google Doc. We only used the tracking sheet for our purposes.
Water Usage Tracking Sheet
Tuesday, March 22 - WORLD WATER DAY!
During 3rd period, all of our classes did the same thing. We all looked at the data that the students collected over the weekend and also looked at some of the curriculum resources from water.org and held whole-class discussions. We mostly discussed some of the facts provided by water.org and watched the video above.
The afternoon was the best! Each teacher had a team of about 20 students and each team had their own color to help with team unity. First, we read and discussed "Women Bear the Weight of Water" which we used from water.org. It can be found on page 8 of the following curriculum resource.
Walking for Water Mini Unit
After discussion and some team building, we headed outside. We started off with water relays. Teams of 10 had to pass off gallon jugs of water, on their heads! Then, we had an endurance competition. 10 representatives from each team had to walk as many laps as they could carrying a one gallon jug of water, of course, on their heads. It was great! The kids had fun coming up with cheers and making posters. We gave them all team colors to help their team spirit. In the end we had a reflection worksheet and follow-up discussion. This really was a fun way to let the kids get a glimpse at what life is like for people who have to travel far distances to get water for their families. Also, it was great for morale!
Wednesday, March 23 & Thursday, March 24 - Follow-Up
Math and social studies are taking the reigns from here. In math, the students are doing a few things. They are looking at real water bills and learning how to decipher them and determine water usage. Also, they are using GapMinder to find the water usage for other countries. They will use this data to create an infographic where the area of a country's circle will represent the water usage for that country.
In my social studies classes, students will be grouped to research the water crises in India, Kenya, Honduras, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh. This was also borrowed from water.org, excpet slightly modified to fit my needs. They have great information on these five countries, short enough for quick research but thorough enough to really impress the point that people do not have equal access to safe drinking water. You can find the lesson on page 4 of this curriculum resource, again, from water.org.
Water.org Middle Curriculum
We had a great day today and I am really looking forward to seeing the student's infographics and mini-presentations. Hopefully you can use some of these ideas in your own classroom. Happy to share...afterall, this lesson wouldn't have been possible without others' willingness to share!
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