Adventure #6:
Water Conservation Efforts
What is Conservation?
Conserving water means using water wisely to waste less! In America, it is estimated that most people waste 95% of the water that they use. If water isn't used efficiently, there won't be enough to go around. Water shortages are most often caused by unsustainable usage.
The following activities will help you find your water usage and provide reasonable steps to use water more sustainably!
Activity: How much water do you use?
Step 1: Think about and write down a list in your Field Journal of all the things that your family uses water for throughout a typical week.
Step 2: Brainstorm with a friend or family member in order to make your list more complete.
Step 3: When your list is finished, visit the water calculator using the button below in order to estimate your water usage.
You may complete this activity with an adult. You may not know the answer to some of the questions, but that's ok. Just make your best guess!
So what does this mean?
Consider this:
There are 326 million trillion gallons of water on Earth, but 317 million trillion of those gallons are salt water and another 6 million trillion are locked up in glaciers. That means there are less than 4 million trillion gallons of water on Earth that can be easily accessed and used.
Sustainability Calculations:
Step 1: Let's let "X" represent your water footprint! Use the number you wrote down earlier from the water calculator; "Personal: ___ Gallons/Day."
In the following equations, plug in the corresponding number whenever you see "X, Y, Z, and W"
Step 2: Let's calculate your estimated water use over 100 years, assuming that your water use patterns stay the same (realistically, they are likely to increase as you get older.)
X * 365 days * 100 years = Y
Step 3: There are roughly 8 billion people on Earth, if they all used as much water as you, then Z number of gallons would be used over the course of 100 years!
8,000,000,000 people * Y = Z
Step 4: But, there are only roughly 3,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of fresh-water available on Earth!
3,000,000,000,000,000,000 - Z = W
If your answer for W was negative, that means your water use is unsustainable. If everyone used as much water as you for the next 100 years, Earth would run out of usable water!
If your answer for W was positive, that means your water use is sustainable!
A "million trillion" sounds kind of funny, and may be hard to think about!
1 million trillion would be written like this:
1,000,000,000,000,000,000
That's a lot of zeros!
Remember the 5 main divisions of water use? Public supply only made up 2% of all water use. In our calculations, we didn't account for all of the water required across the other divisions!
The less water we can use for public supply, the more water is available elsewhere!
Even if the calculations said your water use is "sustainable", we should always try to improve our water footprint!
What Can You Do?
There are many ways that kids can help limit the amount of water that is wasted at home! Try to brainstorm additional ways that you can help your family conserve water! Always be sure to talk to your parents and make sure you're making safe decisions.
While many solutions involve cutting back on cleaning, it's important to remember that hygiene is important!
This list will provide options for making smart and informed decisions about your water usage, but you should always make sure you and your environment are clean and safe.
Activity: Personal Action Statement
Using the information you've learned throughout this entire adventure, consider changes you can make to your daily routine in order to use less water. Create an action statement and list the ways that you plan to conserve water.
Nice job completing the last activity! How did your predictions in your Field Journal compare to the answers?
Go back into your Field Journal and think about those first questions you answered.
Why is water such a valuable resource?
How are people impacted by water?
What is water conservation and why is it important?
How can you personally help preserve water?
Awesome! You have earned your final Adventure Puzzle, the Water Conservation Piece!
Just below this text, you can left-click on the puzzle piece, print it out, cut it out, and complete your puzzle. If you need a new puzzle, feel free to print out a new one on the Home Page.
