WAC - 2010 - Water Resources
Featured Resource
Water, Energy and Agriculture - Powerpoint prepared for World Savvy's Water Around the World Workshop, December 5, 2009, Macalester College
Lesson Plans
Science
Flood!
Learn about how and why soils have different capacities for retaining water, discuss ways to manage flooding, and explore human settlements near major rivers.
Pollution Solutions
Learn about how water systems get polluted and think of ways to clean them up.
Earth’s Waters
Learn about how water affects humans and vice versa.
Contaminants in the Water Cycle
Students will review the water cycle and investigate how a region's water supply can become contaminated. They will look at a list of the Environmental Protection Agency's maximum contaminant levels for drinking water, and sketch the water cycle of a fictitious town that is affected by several pollutants. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water Games and Activities: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/kids/index.html
Back to Lesson PlansLanguage Arts
A Sense of Water
Students discover how the need for water can be felt, seen, and heard in the song, voice, craft, religion, and ritual of a culture. They capture this "sense of water" in a narrative poem.
The Flow of Women's Work
Students compare the division of labor around water-related work in their own homes to families in rural Lesotho to gain an understanding of the multiple factors influencing the formation of gender roles.
Water: Source of Health, Source of Illness
Students examine the connections between water and disease in four West African countries and devise a strategy to fight one waterborne illness in rural Africa.
Narrative vs. Expository Texts
Written for students with limited English language skills, this unit uses the vignettes from Peace Corps Volunteers to compare expository and narrative texts. Students write essays of both types.
Narrative Cartoons
Based on essays and photos provided by Peace Corps Volunteers, students create narrative cartoons that illustrate the lives of young people in an African country.
Water: A Source of Life and Culture
Students research and analyze the role of water in daily life, and create symbols to represent their findings. The students' symbols are arranged to create a contemporary work of art.
The Global Water Sampling Project
Students assess the water quality in their community and compose a letter to a congressperson regarding water quality issues.
Back to Lesson PlansMath
How much water is there?
Students calculate the fresh water available for human consumption and make inferences about the importance of using water resources responsibly.
Back to Lesson PlansSocial Studies
Economics
Is the Price Right?
Introduces students to a variety of products and the reason for their retail price tags. After students play this game, consider the many reasons why retail prices are so much higher than the manufacturing costs of the items, such as marketing, packaging, shipment of goods and profit margins.
Thirst – Lesson Plan
This lesson aims to engage students in an exploration of water privatization issues and the debate between publicly and privately held resources using the film Thirst.
Waterworks: Public or Private?
Students will explore the history and present state of water systems in the U.S., and the current global trend towards privatization, as well as the pros and cons to privatization. Students also analyze a variety of water privatization schemes to solve the water system problems at a fictional high school.
Water, Water Everywhere
Students will explore the connection between population growth and water scarcity.
Civics
World View
National Peace Corps lesson plan on the human right to water and the Water Bill for the Poor Act of 2005.
History
Got Water?
Students will learn that delivering clean, fresh water to citizens around the world involves and affects politics, economics, international relations, and technology.
Commerce in the Indian Ocean
This lesson will introduce students to the geographic features of the Indian Ocean and the critical role of the monsoon in determining maritime trading patterns before the 16th century.
Who Pays the Price When a Sea Disappears?
This lesson asks students to learn about the problems in the Aral Sea region and to discover how the sea's water loss is affecting specific groups of people, such as babies and fishers.
Water: To the last drop
Students examine the role water has played in US history
Geography
Three Gorges: The Biggest Dam in the World
Students research the Three Gorges Dam, build a model dam to understand the engineering of a dam, and discuss the pros and cons of the dam.
The Nile in Crisis
This activity asks students to examine the current water situation in the Nile River region, focusing on the Blue Nile and the Egyptian Nile, and to investigate ways in which the damming of the Nile has changed this river significantly from the way it was in ancient times.
Water Resources in Asia: Changes and Challenges
Students will conduct their own case studies on important water resources, such as the Aral Sea in Central Asia, to see how those resources have influenced the life cycles of countless generations of people and the flow of people, commerce, crops, and life in distinctly different regions in Asia.
Water, Water Everywhere
The goal of this lesson is to familiarize students with the realities about water supply in other nations, as well as in the United States, and what the future holds.
Back to Lesson PlansGeneral
- Thinkfinity
- Global Water Supply
- Globe Educator’s Corner
- Peace Corps World Wise School
- WaterAid Learn Zone
- National Geographic Xpeditions
- Discovery Education
Movies & Videos
Thirst
Is water part of a shared "commons," a human right for all people? Or is it a commodity to be bought, sold, and traded in a global marketplace? "Thirst" tells the stories of communities in Bolivia, India, and the United States that are asking these fundamental questions.Flow
Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis.Blue Gold: World Water Wars
Follows numerous worldwide examples of people fighting for their basic right to water, from court cases to violent revolutions to U.N. conventions to revised constitutions to local protests at grade schools.The Water Channel
An excellent resource for short films on various topics related to water.Food & Water Watch’s Water Film Library
A great resource with several water-related films available on loan.One Take video contest winners.
Part of the 1H2O-Campaign 2009, launched on World Water Day to encourage discussion and awareness of water issues around the world. Videos answer the question "Is access to clean, safe water for drinking a basic human right? Why? Why not?"
Books
- Bottle Mania by Elizabeth Royte: “How water went on sale and why we bought it”
- Water Wars by Vandana Shiva: “Privatization, Pollution, and Profit”
- When the Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce: “Water- the defining crisis of the 21st century”
- Unquenchable by Robert Glennon
Online Resources
- Amman Imman Water is Life
- Blue Planet Project
- Charity: Water
- Children’s Safe Drinking Water Project
- Circle of Blue
- Concern US - Water
- Decade of Action: Water for Life
- H2O for Life
- International Water Law Project
- International Year of Sanitation
- Mercy Corps
- One Drop Foundation
- Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development - Water
- People’s Water Forum
- PlayPumps
- Scholastic – Children’s Safe Drinking Water
- Schools Water Portal
- Tap Project
- The Pacific Institute
- UN Water for Life
- United Nations World Water Development Report
- USAID
- Water.org
- Water Advocates
- Water for People
- Water Health
- Water is Life
- Water Partners International
- Waternet
- World Bank
- World Business Council for Sustainable Development
- World Health Organization – Water
- World Water Council
- World Water Day
Recent Water News
Sewers at Capacity, Waste Poisons Waterways - New York Times: November 22, 2009
Despite upgrades in the 70s and 80s, many sewer systems are still frequently overwhelmed, according to a New York Times analysis of environmental data. As a result, sewage is spilling into waterways.
Drought Poses Obstacle for Giant Chinese Dam - Wall Street Journal: November 18, 2009
Government delays full-capacity test for Three Gorges Project, renewing questions over its environmental cost.
Thirsty Plant Dries Out Yemen - New York Times: October 31, 2009
Across Yemen, the underground water sources that sustain 24 million people are running out, and some areas could be depleted in just a few years.
Americans More Water-Conscious Overall - KQEP: October 30, 2009
Despite the addition of 81 million people over the period, Americans were using less water in 2005 than they were in 1975, according to the latest numbers released from the USGS.
Israel keeping Gaza parched, Amnesty International says - CNN: October 27, 2009
According to the human rights group Amnesty International, Israel is denying Palestinians access to adequate water supplies by controlling shared water resources
Water shortage fueling displacement of people in northern Iraq - UNESCO: October 2009
Over 100,000 people in northern Iraq have been forced to evacuate their homes since 2005 because of severe water shortages, a UNESCO study finds. Drought and excessive well pumping have drawn down aquifer levels in the region, causing a dramatic decline of water flow in ancient underground aqueducts, known in Iraq as karez, upon which hundreds of communities depend.
Nation's School Drinking Water Contains Toxins - Associated Press: September 28, 2009
An Associated Press investigation found that contaminants have surfaced at public and private schools in all 50 states in small towns and inner cities alike.
Nestle Gives Up on McCloud Water Bottling Plant - Triplepundit: September 17, 2009
Activists in the Northern California town of McCloud are claiming victory in a six-year battle to block Nestle Waters North America from erecting a water bottling plant at the site of an old mill in the once-prosperous logging town.
Iraq Demands More Water from Turkey, Syria - Reuters : September 12, 2009
Three months after Turkey promised to release more water down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Iraq still struggles with its water supplies.
Water crisis threatens Yemen's swelling population - Reuters : August 31, 2009
Water shortages in Yemen are fueling conflict around the country as officials look to desalination
Water crisis to hit Asian food - BBC : August 18, 2009
Scientists have warned Asian countries that they face chronic food shortages and likely social unrest if they do not improve water management.
Water Crisis Uproots Syrian farmers - Reuters : July 26, 2009
How the pollution of the Euphrates river in Syria impacts food security in the region.
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