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Connecting Experience
Goal 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation
Can you imagine a life without water? 1 in 9 people live without access to safe water, and even worse, 1 in 3 don’t have access to a toilet. Providing access to clean water and proper sanitation services can save millions of lives a year by preventing water-borne diseases, dehydration, and contamination.
Tasks
Wash away the germ
Wake up points
| Age Group: 7+ | Amount of people: 10+ |
Time: 40 minutes
Objective:
To learn about hygiene and the importance of washing your hands correctly.
Material:
Good handwashing practice cards
Instructions:
Start by asking the participants if they know why it’s important to clean their hands? Explain that germs can be spread simply by touching each other.
All the participants sit in a circle, one of them is the “soap” who leaves the room while the others chose a “germ” and a gesture (such as a wink or a finger point). When the germ does the gesture at someone they die. Then the “soap” comes back and needs to find who is the germ before the germ infects everyone by looking at the others and doing the gesture.
Each time a “soap” finds a germ, they win one of the steps to good hand washing practice. Keep nominating participants to be the “soap” until they have collected all of the following:
- Warm water
- Soap
- Don’t forget to clean under your nails
- 20 seconds
- Rinsing
- Drying
When the group finds all the steps they need to work together to put them in the right order (make sure they were shuffled before the game starts).
Debrief:
- When do you need to clean your hands?
Water facts
Wake up points
| Age Group: 11+ | Amount of people: 4+ |
Time: 30 – 60 minutes
Objective:
To learn about water across the world.
Material:
Paper and pens
Instructions:
Begin by splitting participants into small groups and giving each group paper and pens.
In their groups, participants should write down what they think access to water is like in different countries, and what impact not having access to water can have.
Groups should present their thoughts, and then discuss these thoughts along with the facts below:
- 844 million people don’t have clean water close to home
- 2.3 billion people don’t have a decent toilet of their own
- 31% of schools don’t have clean water
- A new-born baby dies from an infection caused by lack of safe water and an unclean environment every minute
- Diarrhoea caused by dirty water and poor toilets kills a child under five every two minutes
- Around the world up to 443 million school days are lost every year because of water-related illnesses
- The average distance that women in Africa and Asia walk to collect water is six kilometres (3.7 miles)
- In Sub-Saharan Africa, women and girls spend 40 billion hours a year collecting water. This is the same amount of time as a year’s worth of work by the entire work force of France
- Many girls’ school attendance is impacted by them having to spend their mornings walking long distances to collect water
Water cycle
Look around points
| Age Group: 7+ | Amount of people: 10+ |
Time: 40 minutes
Objective:
To learn about the water cycle.
Material:
Open space
Instructions:
Split the participants into small groups and give each group a stage of the water cycle.
- Evaporation (because of the heat, the water turns into steam)
- Condensation (water vapour cools and forms clouds)
- Rain and snow (when the temperature drops)
- Runoff from the mountains (creates a river)
- Filtration (creation of underground water reserves)
- Back to the sea
Each group will create a simple movement to represent their stage of the cycle.
Example: back to the sea = pretend to swim, runoff from the mountains = run on the spot.
Each group should teach the others their movement, going through them in the order of the cycle.
Once everyone is familiar with the movements, begin the game.
Each person starts by doing the movement for evaporation, participants play rock paper scissors against each other, the winner does the next movement (condensation) and the loser stays with the evaporation movement. Once participants move past evaporation, if they lose they go back one level.
The first to go back to evaporation after doing the whole cycle, wins.
Debrief:
- Why it is important to have clean water in nature?
- Why it is important to have a clean rivers and seas?
Water exploration
Look around points
| Age Group: 11+ | Amount of people: 4+ |
Time: 1 – 2 hours
Objective:
To create awareness of water in our surroundings and the relationship between water and human life.
Material:
Map, paper, pens, camera (optional)
Instructions:
Split the participants into small groups and give each group a map, paper, pen and a camera (optional). A route can be marked on the map, you could give them co-ordinates to follow, or they can decide on their own route within a marked area.
Each group should walk along their route looking for water. When they find some, they should think about the following questions:
- Where is the water?
- What is it used for?
- How much water is there?
- What does it look like? (colour, smell…)
- Can humans drink it? Can animals drink it?
- If they have a camera, they can take a picture of it.
When the groups have returned each group should present what they discovered.
Debrief:
- Were you surprised by the amount of water you saw?
- How does the water you found fit into the water cycle?
- How does the water help us?
- How does the water help plants and animals?
- Is there any water that you can’t see?
Cleaning Water
ACT points
| Age Group: 7+ | Amount of people: 3+ |
Time: 1 – 3 hours
Objective:
To learn how water is kept clean and made drinkable in your community.
Material:
n/a
Instructions:
If possible, plan a visit to a place in the local area, such as a water cleaning plant. Alternatively invite someone who works there, or a local innovator working on a clean water project, to come and speak to the group.
If neither of these options are possible, participants could research different ways water is cleaned around the world.
After their visit or research, have the participants come up with methods to ensure their water is clean and safe when outdoors.
Debrief:
- What do you think is the most eco way to clean water?
- What is the most common way in your area?
Less water is better
ACT points
| Age Group: 11+ | Amount of people: 3+ |
Time: 1 month
Objective:
To realise the effect you have on your water consumption.
Material:
n/a
Instructions:
Begin by creating a list of all the moments in daily life that water is being used. Keep in mind that not all water use is visible, such as the water needed to grow the vegetables they eat or the clothes they wear.
Below are some average amounts of water used for different tasks. Participants should try to estimate the amount of water they use each day.
- A toilet uses 6 to 12 litres of water
- Hand washing uses 10 to 30 litres of water
- A dishwasher uses 20 to 40 litres of water
- A shower uses 30 to 100 litres of water
- A bath uses 75 to 200 litres of water
- A washing machine uses 80 to 140 litres of water
- Washing a car uses about 200 litres of water
- Watering the garden uses 1000 to 2000 litres per hour
After discovering the amount of water they use per day, participants should make a list of actions they can do to reduce that consumption for at least one month.
Debrief:
- Did you realise that you use that much water?
- What was the hardest part of the challenge?
- What do you think you can do to encourage others to use less water?
