2001 Water Project Module Three Summaries

 
 
 
 
Havergal College
Ontario, Canada
Payson Seymour Elem., Illinois, USA Colonel Light Gardens Primary School, Adelaide, South Australia School No.217
St. Petersburg Russia
Pinehurst Primary
Cape Town, South Africa
Pingelly District High School, Pingelly, Western Australia
Ray Miller Elem., Missouri, USA Rosenwald-Dunbar Elementary, Jessamine County, Kentucky USA Pettisville Elementary School, Ohio USA Fairfield Elementary School, Virginia USA Compton Primary School
South Australia
Cowell Area School
Cowell, South Australia

Module Three from Havergal College Ontario, Canada

Dear Water Project Pals,

In our project, Module Three is all about the uses of water in a recreational way. We are lucky in Canada because we have four seasons.
One day, our class had a brainstorming session about how we use water for fun in our warmer seasons, especially summer (June, July and August).
These are some of the activities that the girls of 2T like to do: splashing in puddles, fishing, surfing, tubing, swimming, sailing, scuba diving,
snorkeling, boating, running under a sprinkler, sliding down a water slide and listening to or watching outdoor water fountains. (Sometimes, on very
hot days, it's also fun to play in the bigger water fountains.) In 2S, we talked about activities in the winter. These are some activities that we
like to do: skating, making snowmen, skiing and dogsledding.

Please go to our website to see our all of our hard work.
http://www.hccommunity.havergal.on.ca/btaylor/modthree.htm

We are looking forward to seeing what you have done,
2S and 2T Havergal College  Junior School

Module Three from Payson Seymour Elementary, Illinois, USA

Hello once again from Mr. Smith's 5th graders in  Payson, Illinois. Our studies in using and saving water have left us slightly goofy, maybe from working
too hard. Anyway, we somehow evolved from our science mode into our creative writing mode and the following stories about  saving water emerged from
the storm of our learning. Please enjoy our Water Module 3 called "Amazing Stories About Saving Water on This  Planet."  
Terry Smith -- 5th Grade Teacher
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SABINE AND THE DISHES    
Once apon a time there was a girl named  Sabine Dale Tracy. She was washing the dishes with the water faucet running. That night when she went to take her
bath there was no water because she used all of the water washing the dishes. Now she knows to not let the water run while doing dishes and to fill the sink
with water instead.
So the moral of the story is not to let the water run while doing the dishes.         
from,  Jordan, Adam, Krykette, and Paul Waters, who is known as  The Water Boy              
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Jim Bob  and his Water Problems     
Once upon a time, there was a little mouse named  Jim Bob. He was a little brown mouse who lived in a tiny hole in a big  house. When he bathed, he used
way too much water. Two weeks later, he ran out of water.  He panicked, ran outside, and ran  into Bingo, a full-blood  Begal. He asked Bingo to to help him.
Bingo barked and ran to get a tiny bucket. Bingo filled it with water, brought it to Jim Bob, and sat him in it. It was just the right size for him. From that day on,
he never lost one ounce of water.
The moral of  the story is to never leave the water running, and also, never use too much  water!!!!                                                                  
BY: Kala J, Ashley W, and Brandon W  
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The Overflowing Toliet and Sink Problem     
One day a person from Texas named little Cuz was in the bath room brushing his teeth on the pot. The water was overflowing. His brother Joe came in the
bathroom and said what are you doing little Cuz the bathroom is over flowed and we don't have any water. This is a lesson not to leave the water on when you are
doing something else like brushing your teeth becaue the water is being wasted!                
From Tegan,Shauna,and a little bit of  help from  Nathan
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Brother  Joe in the Bad Encounter with the Toliet
Brother Joe liked to flush  his old toilet because he loved the sound of running water. One day he flushed his toilet so much that it exploded. It flooded so
much water that Brother Joe's  house floated away with him in it.  
 THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS THAT YOUR  SHOULD PUT WATER-FILLED PLASTIC MILK CONTAINER IN THE WATER TANK OF Y
OUR OLD  TOILET TO SAVE WATER.   WRITTEN BY  JENNIFER, BRIDGET, CHRIS
========================================================= 
Kenny and the Toilet Accident   "Kenny did you fill the toilet with water." "No."  "Kenny you know we have an old toilet and if you don't it will stop flushing."
Two hours later. "Kenny." "What." The toilet isn't flushing and it really  smells." "Oops." If you have an old toilet you should always fill it up with  water because
it uses more water when you flush.
BY jORDAN  c
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Billy Bob's Water Bill     by: Tori, Ashley, and Eric    
You should always collect running water in a bucket while exacting your shower temperature and use it to water your plants. Billy  Bob always turns the
water on in the shower and always waits for the water to  get hot and lets it go down the drain. Boy is Billy Bob's water bill outrageous!!!! He should start putting
the water in a bucket until it gets hot  and use the cold water to water the plants. So in conclusion you should always put the cold water in a bucket until the water
gets hot and use the cold water to water the  plants in your house and  outside.
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Module Three from School 217, St. Petersburg, Russia
 
 

Module Three from Pinehurst Primary, Cape Town, South Africa

Dear Water Pals,

Since we are very late in sending off these last two modules, we have combined them.

We have read about many of your experiences where certain of your classes managed to visit a water treatment plant
and other interesting places.

During National Water Week in South Africa, our children went on an  outing to the Imax Theatre to watch a water presentation.
We learnt many interesting things about how important water is for us and life  on earth. We were fortunate enough, when we
left the Imax, to watch a live presentation about water, as part of National Water Week. We learnt some new ideas about how to
conserve water and these were presented in the form of drama and mime.
Some of what we learnt was the following:
*Never leave taps running while brushing your teeth
*Rather shower than bath and sing shorter songs in the shower!
*Wash your car using a bucket and not a hose
*Fit water-saving devices in your toilets
*Wash vegetables in a basin of water, not under running water.
 

We have unfortunately not managed to visit a water treatment plant and most of our activities were
based on smaller outings so most of what we have done happened in the classroom.

We learnt how to filter water by using an empty plastic Coke bottle.
This is what we did:

1.  We cut the top off a Coke bottle to make a funnel.
2.  We plugged the neck of the bottle with cottonwool.
3.  We were told to place three different layers in the funnel.
     The layers were:  gravel, sand and damp soil.
4.  We waited for less than a minute to watch what would happen.
5.  The water from the damp soil filtered through the cottonwool.
6.  The water came out clear.

Cape Town is well-known for its many beaches that are major tourist attractions. We enjoy social activities such as surfing,
bodyboarding, kayaking, paddle-skiing, scuba-diving, jet-skiing, etc. Some parts of our country have natural hot warm springs
which are used to create naturally heated warmbaths.  The 5 dams, which are found at the top of Table Mountain supply
Cape Town with its water.

We did another experiment in the classroom to investigate how much water is being used by the pupils in our class at
school. We measured the amount of water wasted by one child when drinking from a tap. We used a stop-watch to measure
the length of time it took for them to drink the water  and then worked out, on average, how much water was wasted. Although
not everyone had the opportunity to be part of the experiment, it gave us a good idea of how much water is wasted by the pupils
in one day, at our school.

In Pinelands, outside our school, is a canal, which carries water from various parts of the community.  It was a good idea to
use this canal to discover how polluted this water actually is in our area. We used Coke bottles and placed a visibility disk with
the numbers 1 to 4 on it. We took a sample of the canal water and waited for it to settle. According to the numbers that were
visible to us, we could determine how polluted the canal water is.

Our class came up with some fantastic ideas on how to improve the condition of the state of pollution in the canal.
*Never throw anything in the canal
*Designing posters to encourage the children in our school not to pollute the canal
*Organise a canal clean-up
*Send letters to surrounding factories and the health department, showing our concerns for the state of the canal
*Send letters to the municipality requesting that they place more garbage bins along the canal

We have thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity to share our ideas with you.  We hope that you have learnt as much as we have.
 

Module Three from Ray Miller Elem., Kirksville, Missouri, USA

Water Recreation in the Summer
 

Module Three from Rosenwald-Dunbar Elementary, Jessamine County, Kentucky USA
Module Three fromPettisville Elementary School, Ohio USA

 Dear Water Pals,  
The weather in northwestern Ohio has been hot and  dry the past couple of weeks. Farmers are busy planting crops and are
hoping for rain. It is predicted for Thursday, so hopefully we will get a  nice slow and steady rain to help the corn and bean
seeds that have already been  planted. We visited our local water treatment plant in  March. Since the water we use in Pettisville
is piped from Archbold, a  neighboring community, we travelled to Archbold to the water plant. The water we use at school is
piped into two reservoirs in Archbold from the Tiffin  River. Visiting the water treatment plant was interesting, because we  didn't
really understand before what an interesting process it is to clean and  prepare water for drinking. Most of us had never before
been to the  treatment plant. Two of the main chemicals used to clean the water  are lime and chlorine. The plant superintendent
told us that the water treatment plant in Archbold keeps the chemicals in balance very well, and the  people using this water have
never had to boil their water before using  it.  Sometimes in neighboring communities too many nitrates are found in  the water,
and people are asked to boil it for a day or two, until the water is  safe to use again. We were surprised, at first, that sand is used
as a  filter to help settle dirt out of the water. But, when we thought about it  a bit more, some of us have swimming pools and use
filters with sand to clean  the water that circulates in our pools.   Archbold has a lot of industry.  LaChoy, a  producer of Chinese
foods, uses a lot of water each day. This factory is  the largest user of water in Archbold or Pettisville. A parent of one of our students
is an engineer who  designs waste water treatment plants. He visited our classroom last  week. He told us that on the average each
person uses 50-100 gallons of  water per day. That would mean that a family of 4 would use 200 gallons  per day. There are about
600 people living in the community of Pettisville  who get their water from Archbold.  That would mean that the people in our
community use about 6000 gallons of water each day.  Most of the students  in our classroom live in the county and get their water
from wells. We  were surprised to learn that in the city of Detroit, which is about 120 miles  north of Pettisville, about 1,000,000,000
gallons of water is used each  day.  That's a lot!!!  Our engineer friend also had 2 jars of water. One he had filled from his faucet,
and one he had filled from a waste water  treatment plant before he came to our classroom. We couldn't tell the  difference between
the two jars.  We were surprised because we always  thought that waste water was so gross, but  we learned that the waste water is
cleaned quite thoroughly, before the water is sent out to Brush Creek, a  creek outside of Archbold. This is the process:  After a toilet
is flushed, the waste water goes to  the sewer. Once it gets to the waste water treatment plant, it goes through  these bar screens that
sort out all of the big waste-YUCK!!! From there it goes  into a grit chamber to a primary sedimentation tank to an aeration tank. 
We learned that tiny bugs help to clean the water. The people that work at  the waste water treatment plant have to work hard to
make sure that just the  right amount of bugs are available to clean the water. This is a pretty neat  system, because its nature way
of cleaning the water. Then, the water  moves into a secondary sedimentation tank where chlorine is added. We thought it was
interesting that chloring is added at both kinds of water  treatment plants. From there, the waste water moves into a digester, and
then is pumpedinto Brush Creek. There are lots of different uses of water around  us. Farmers depend on water for growing crops,
and industries, such as the  Sauder Companies, depend on water to produce steam as well as Lachoy where  Chinese food is processed. 
Since we live in northwestern Ohio, we aren't  very far from Indiana and Michigan. Many people have cottages at lakes in  Indiana
and Michigan. Some people have boats that they take up to  lakes.  Lake Erie is about a 45 minute drive and some students fish there
with their families. The Maumee River is a larger river that runs through  Defiance, Napoleon, and into Toledo. Part of the War of
1812 was fought in  Lake Erie, the Mauemee River was the site of several famous Indian  battles. Today people who visit historic
Grand Rapids, Ohio can ride in a canal boat just like the one that was used in the 1800's on the  Miami-Erie Canal. Before the railroad, canals were important in Ohio for transporting goods and people. A canal is a manmade kind of ditch filled  with water.   Lake Erie is one of the largest ports in the  world. Much grain and also stell is transported on freight ships and  barges to and from Toledo on Lake Erie.  
We hope you find this information to be useful and  helpful.   
Your Pettisville, Ohio water e-pals.  

Module Three from Fairfield Elementary School Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA

Water in our area is used for recreation, commerce, transportation and the Navy.

Recreation uses:  Byron
We have many small marinas that are used by people to keep their boats.  These boats are used for going out and seeing the area, fishing,
water skiing, tubing (pulling a tube with someone riding on it behind the boat) and other fun stuff.  We have a number of boat ramps that you
can use to launch a boat off from a trailer and then take it out of the water after you use it.
The ocean beach is the main summer attraction in our city.  Many people come here in the summer to vacation on the beach. Our beach runs
from Cape Henry - which is the entrance to Chesapeake Bay  -  to the border of North Carolina. This is about 28 miles (45 km). The last 11 miles
(17.6 km) is False Cape State Park. The beach continues on down in North Carolina. The beach is fun to go to. You can swim or just wade in the
water. If there has been a storm there may be large waves. If a hurricane comes here or comes close to us you can not go out on the beach because
the wind is very strong and the waves may get up to 15 feet high. That does not happen very often. The ocean temperature here is 52 F (11 C) now.
It gets a little warmer every week. It gets up to the high 70's and sometimes it will reach 80 F (27 C) in the summer.
We also have a number of streams and waterways that you can use a canoe or kayak on. We are too far north for alligators (they have some in
North Carolina) but we do have water snakes, including water moccasins (they are poisonous).

Commercial Use -  by Alycia
The main commercial use of water here is shipping. We have two main types of cargo piers here. One supports the big container ships.
Those are the ones that carry things in the big steel boxes that are the trailer part of a tractor-trailer truck. You can load these at any factory or business,
then drive it to the pier, load it on a ship and send it to another port. We have 3 of these pier facilities here. Each can handle at least three ships at a time.
The other type of cargo pier loads coal onto big freighters. We have huge coal fields in the western part of Virginia and in other states adjoining us.
The coal is brought to the piers by train and loaded onto the ships by huge conveyors. We have 2 major coal loading piers in our area. We also tug
boats that pull barges up and down the Chesapeake Bay.
We have a fairly large fishing community here also. The seafood Chesapeake Bay is most known for is the blue crab. They are good to ear but it takes
a lot of them to make a meal. There has been a lot of talk about cutting back the number of crabs caught because they are getting harder to catch and
they are not as big as they used to be. We also have good oysters in the Bay. Fishermen harvest much less oysters than they used to. Oysters are filter
feeders.  They draw in water and filter their food from whatever is in the water.  Scientists have estimated that when the Jamestown colonists came here
400 years ago there were enough oysters in the bay to filter all of the water in the bay every 2 weeks.  Now there are enough to filter the water once every year.

The Navy - by Brian
The U.S. Navy's largest base is in our area. Norfolk Naval Base includes Naval Station Norfolk, Naval Amphibious Base (NAB) Little Creek,
Naval Air Station (NAS) Oceana and Naval Training Center (NTC) Dam Neck.
Naval Station Norfolk is located right where the James and Elizabeth Rivers join and empty into the Chesapeake Bay. This is where all of the carriers,
cruisers, destroyers, submarines, large amphibious ships and supply ships tie up. There are over 60 ships that call this home. Norfolk is right next to
Virginia Beach.
NAB is in the northern part of Virginia Beach and has a channel that opens right to the Chesapeake Bay. All of the medium and small amphibious
ships work out of here. Also all of the navy salvage ships and various small boats. Half of the Navy's Seal teams are here also.
NAS is home to all of the Navy fighters on our east coast. This includes all of the F-14 Tomcats and the F/A-18 Hornets. NTC Dam Neck is right
on the Atlantic Ocean and takes up about a mile of the ocean beach. The Navy has several technical schools there.

One of the special things that we use the water for is fireworks. Downtown Norfolk is right on the Elizabeth River. When they do fire for things like
New Years or Independence Day, they bring in a barge with all of the fireworks on it and shoot them from the middle of the river. Many people can
get a good view of the fireworks and still be in a safe area.