Making every drop count
Activities
National Science Week (Australia)
School theme for 2006 – the Australian Science Teachers Association has produced a teacher’s resource book, Our Dry Continent, that includes facts, activities, experiments, diagrams and useful web sites. The book is free to all Australian schools and ASTA members, or can be purchased from ASTA.
Waterwatch Victoria (Australia)
Waterwatch education kit – provides information on issues related to water quality and over 30 classroom and field activities for students.
Queensland Government Department of Natural Resources and Water (Australia)
Water: Learn it for life! Unit 2: Drinkable water (lessons 7-10) – students explore water issues and investigate how drinking water is treated.
LandLearn (Australia)
Know our catchments – students identify a catchment, then discuss its importance and the meaning of integrated catchment management.
Environment Protection Authority, Department of Environment and Conservation, New South Wales (Australia)
Stormwater teaching guide – provides a number of activities about catchments, stormwater and pollution including Stormwater and sewage, Investigating pollutants in water and Taking action.
Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Water (Australia)
Water cycles and catchments – provides activities for students to investigate the water cycle and catchments.
Catchment management – provides activities and background information for students to investigate the management of water catchments.
My Internet (Australia)
Waste not, want not – provides a series of four activities on the theme of water consumption. Includes teacher notes.
Melbourne Water Education (Australia)
Water recycling – a series of five activities about water recycling.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Waterwatch – students analyse water quality and enter the results on a database.
Salinity and irrigation – students investigate irrigation methods used along the Murray-Darling River and the reasons for increases in salinity along the river.
Living with salty water – students investigate river water use for irrigation, the increasing salt load in rivers, water desalination and the effects of environmental flows.
Global education, AusAID (Australia)
Water source of life: a case study of a water and sanitation project in Uvira – examines a water and sanitation project in Africa, and the work of aid agencies in developing sustainable projects to meet community needs.
Science upd8 (UK)
You need to register to access activities but they are free.
Water for all – students learn about some pathogenic micro-organisms in water and discover how water can be made safe to drink.
Microsoft (USA)
How much water does your family use? – students compare the amount of water used by their families and identify ways to decrease family water usage.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (USA)
Water purification for the International Space Station – students construct a filter to simulate the water purification system on the ISS.
University of Missouri (USA)
Water quality testing – students determine the number of coliform bacteria in a sample of water. Information on coliform nomenclature is avaliable.
Waksman Foundation for Microbiology (USA)
Water quality – students analyse the number and type of bacteria in a sample of water.
BioEd Online (USA)
The water cycle and global warming – students trace the flow of water in the environment and investigate human activities that influence the distribution and quality of water.
Daily Lesson Plan, New York Times (USA)
The world’s water woes: understanding the complexity of water disputes – students discuss their community’s water sources, assess the factors affecting water availability and research water disputes around the world.
Page updated October 2008.