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About the Campaign Water is Life Households Resources Quiz Gallery |
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| The role of schools and NGOs |
 Hi teachers and counselors!! Want your kids and volunteers to know more about water? Want them to participate in saving and conserving it? This is the right page!! This particular section will help you find fun and easy to do experiments related to water and its importance. |
Rainwater Treatment * Drop of Water * Every Drop Counts * Tornado in a Jar * Salt Water to Fresh Water
RAINWATER/WASTEWATER TREATMENT |
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This activity will help students understand that rainwater harvested from the roofs of homes/schools can get contaminated with fallen leaves / other filth on the roof. This water thus requires to be filtered prior to its storage; else it would become unfit for consumption. |
Material required: 3 flower pots, wire or mesh with large holes and one with small holes, bucket, tripod stand, gravel, pebble, coarse and fine sand, a vessel.
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| Method: |
1. Let the students take three flower pots and place a sieve/wire mesh with smaller holes over the first flower pot and a sieve/wire mesh with smaller holes over the second flower pot.
2. Ask them to put layers of gravel, pebbles and sand into the third flower pot.
3. Ask the students to take a bucket with some water and mud, paper pieces, fallen leaves, sand, plastic and bits of cloth into it
4. Now let the students place the first flower pot in the stand and place a vessel under it
5. Let them pour the water through the first filter and collect the water in the vessel (ask students to keep aside a small representative sample for later use).
6. Let them examine the water and note down which of the added solids are still present in the water (ask students to keep aside a small representative sample for later use).
7. The collected water should be passed through the second pot and the procedure repeated.
8. Filtered water collected following step 7 should be passed through the third pot (here again ask students to keep aside a small representative sample for later use).
9. The water which is filtered through the last filter must be compared with the original contaminated water and also with representative samples of the water obtained from the first and second filters.
10. Ask students to note the difference in the representative water samples kept aside after steps 5, 6, 7 with the water sample they obtain after step 9. Ask them to discuss and bring out the differences.
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| DROP OF WATER |
 Although there is a large quantity of water available on earth, only a very small percentage of this total water is available for human use and consumption. This activity will help students draw an analogy to the quantity of water present in the seas that present in glaciers, that available as ground water, etc. |
Material required: water, large container (capacity of 2.5 L), small transparent containers (3), spoons, dropper, measuring cylinder
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| Method: |
1. Students should take 2200 ml of water into a container. If a measuring cylinder is not available, an empty soft drink bottle of known capacity maybe used.
2. Students should assume that 2200 ml of water represents the total water available on Earth.
3. Students should then remove 12 spoonfuls of water from the total volume of water mentioned above into a plastic/ glass bowl. This water removed into the bowl represents the total amount of fresh water on the Earth. Including the water found in lakes, rivers, ice caps and ground water.
4. The water that now remains in the large container represents salty water found in oceans and seas.
5. From the bowl containing 12 spoons of water, students should measure out 2 spoons of water into another bowl. This water represents the ground water.
6. From the bowl now containing 10 spoonfuls of water, remove half a spoon of water into another bowl. This water represents the surface water present as fresh water lakes.
7. From the bowl now containing 10 spoonfuls of water, remove half a spoon of water into another bowl. This water represents the surface water present as fresh water lakes.
8. From the bowl now containing, just over 9 spoonfuls of water, students must remove one drop of water with the help of a dropper. The water in the dropper represents the water present in rivers.
9. The bowl which now contains just about 9 spoonfuls of water represents water locked in icebergs. The students must now compare the quantities of water in various containers.
10. Students would realize that although three fourth of the surface of the Earth is covered with water, only a limited percentage is available for human consumption
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Percentage distribution of water on Earth |
| Oceans |
97.2 |
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| Ice caps |
02.0 |
| Groundwater |
00.62 |
| Fresh water lakes |
00.009 |
| Inland seas and salt lakes |
00.008 |
| Atmosphere |
00.001 |
| Rivers |
00.0001 |
| Total |
99.8381 |
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| EVERY DROP COUNTS |
| A leaky tap may not be of much concern to most people, as this means that a few drops of water are going waste. But on the contrary, this leaky tap is actually a cause of worry as could be demonstrated to students by the following activity. |
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Material required: tap, measuring cylinder, stopwatch, and bucket.
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| Method: |
1. Gather the students around a water tap
2. Place a bucket under the tap and adjust the tap so that the water drips drop by drop.
3. Let one student take charge of the stopwatch or minute glass and be the time keeper.
4. Ask another student to hold a measuring cylinder under the dripping tap.
5. As soon as the time keeper gives a signal to the end of one minute the cylinder should be removed from under the tap.
6. The water collected in the cylinder should be measured.
7. Based on the amount of water collected in one minute, ask the students to calculate the amount of water that would be wasted in one hour, in one day and then in one month from the dripping tap.
8. Subsequent to the understanding that considerable amount of water is lost from a leaky tap, students must be encouraged to undertake a survey in their school to try and understand reasons behind the wastage of water- is the wastage due to callousness or is it due to faulty taps?
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| Method: |
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Materials required: canning jar, clear liquid soap, vinegar, water |
| Method: |
1. Fill the jar about three-quarters full of water.
2. Put a teaspoon of the liquid soap into the jar.
3. Also, add a teaspoon of vinegar into the jar.
4. Tighten the lid and shake the jar to mix up the ingredients Now, swirl the jar in a circular motion The liquid will form a small tornado.
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| If you want to get creative, you can also use food coloring to make the tornado have a color and glitter to represent debris |
| SALT WATER TO FRESH WATER |
Material required: rge bowl, glass or cup, tape, plastic wrap, small rock, pitcher of water, salt, long spoon for stirring
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| Method: |
 On a deserted island, there's ocean water all around you - but you can't drink any because it's too salty. Here's how to turn saltwater into fresh water using the sun (and gravity.) |
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1. First make saltwater by adding salt to fresh water. Stir the water until the salt dissolves.
2. Now pour about two inches of saltwater in a large bowl.
3. Take an empty glass and put it in the bowl. The top of the glass should be shorter than the top of the bowl, but higher than the saltwater.
4. Put plastic wrap over the top of the bowl. You may need to use tape to make sure the seal is tight.
5. The last step is to put something heavy right in the center of the plastic wrap, over the empty glass. That will weigh the plastic down and help you collect the water. Now you've made a solar still. It's called a still because it distills, or purifies, water.
6. Leave your still outside in the sun. Leave it alone for a few hours, or even a whole day. The longer you leave it out, the more water you'll collect.
7. When you're ready to check your still, take the plastic wrap off and look at the water that's collected in the cup. Do you think it's salty or fresh? Taste it!! |
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