The Great Water Wheel - Acqua e Territorio


This activity combines theoretical knowledge on water sourcing, local hydrography and water pollution causes. In combination with the theory, practical activities are in place to test the knowledge acquired.

  • Experiment - How do we clean up water? (Primary/Secondary)

The objective is to follow an established protocol for water purification and observe the results. The experiment can vary according to the age of students. The students will conduct the experiment and observe and comment with the teachers what happens. Then, they will sum up the results with drawings (primary) and/or graphs (secondary).

  1. Water Filtration Experiment
  2. Experiment - How do we eat water? (Primary)

The experiment aims at showing to students that our daily water intake doesn’t come exclusively from drinking water, but also from food. It is important then that the water we use in agriculture is not polluted. Students will see how pollution can then get into our food if it gets into water.

What do you need?

  • A glass
  • Tap water
  • Red/blue food coloring
  • A knife (supervision needed)
  • A stick of celery with leaves on it

What do you do?

  1. Fill the glass with water
  2. Add two or three drops of food coloring. Notice how it spreads through the water. Pollution could spread through water just like the food coloring does. 
  3. Wash the piece of celery. Leave the leaves on.
  4. Being very careful, use the knife (get an adult to help) and cut off the bottom of the celery.
  5. Put the celery in the glass filled with colored water.
  6. Let the celery stalk sit there for at least four hours or overnight.
  7. Then take the celery stalk out of the water.
  8. Use the knife (remember to get help from an adult) and cut a slice off the bottom of the stalk.
  9. Cut more slices.

Questions

  1. Before you took the celery stalk out of the water, what did it look like?
  2. When you sliced off pieces from the celery stalk, what did you find?
  3. The food coloring is like pollution that could get into water. What would happen if there was pollution in the water instead of food coloring?
  4. What does this tell you about polluted water?

Topics covered

Water sourcing, Pollution, Environment Conservation

Relevance

This activity introduces water sourcing, treatment and pollution to students in a comprehensible way, starting from where water is sourced, how it can be tainted by human activity and how it should be treated before putting it back in the water cycle.

It also encourages students to get to know their local territory and understand basic concepts of geography and hydrography