Conservation.docVIP

 PAGE 3 Kids For Conservation Water Conservation Winter 2004 Josh Tolkan and Anne Abramowitz Objectives To help the kids think of ways to conserve water, and be conscious of water waste To understand why it is important to conserve water To understand who uses water and why To understand why water is in limited supply To be enthused and ready to act on the ideas talked about in this session (BE ENERGETIC!) Introduction (10 min) Large Group Ask the kids to start naming different kinds of water uses, and have one teacher write the uses on the board. Probe them to give the following answers somehow (give examples, name ones they miss, give a category and have them give the examples…). Domestic (water for all the things you do at home, i.e., drinking, bathing, cooking) Commercial (water for restaurants, motels, offices) Industry (water to produce metals, wood, paper goods, gasoline) Thermoelectric (water for producing electrical power from burning coal and other fuels) Mining (water for extracting materials from the earth and washing the ore) Irrigation (water for growing crops) Livestock (water for cows, chickens, and horses and for processing meats, poultry, eggs, and milk) Town Water Use Simulation (20min split the class in two halves Materials: different sized sponges, two buckets or bowls Introduce the concept of water use over time. The water that was used in the past affects us now. If 20 years ago a lake was drained or polluted, we will not be able to use it today. To explain this concept we will do a demonstration. Fill a large bowl or bucket with water and explain that the water represents all the water from a watershed (define watershed) 200 years ago, this includes all water from a reservoir, pond, lake, river, or ground water. We will represent water use by humans over time by removing water with sponges at several time steps, that we will call rounds. In each round several students will represent different water users and will use different siz