On Wednesday 22nd March, in conjunction with Science for Life, Matt Mc Curdy, Lead Science Practitioner at Saint Mary Magdalene Academy, hosted a Clean Water event for Y5 and 6 pupils from three Islington schools with Y7 pupils from his science club assisting. He made excellent use of the Practical Action 'Ditch the Dirt' resources. Pupils began by thinking about how much water they drink; use to shower; brush their teeth; and flush the toilet. The answers were surprising! Pupils were made aware that there are around 2.4 billion people in the world today who do not have water piped to, or close to their homes. Many women and children (especially girls) have to collect water and carry it back to their homes every day. The context of being stranded on a desert island, was set.

Here is what some pupils had to say:

Y6 Drayton Park: "I enjoyed seeing many children from different schools and looking at how everyone did it."

Y5 Gillespie: "I learnt how to use different types of things to make water clean."

Y5 Saint Mary Magdalene Academy: " I learnt that you can make charcoal from coconut."

Y7 Saint Mary Magdalene Academy: " I enjoyed helping everyone build a water filter and learnt about science."

On their feedback forms, teachers from Drayton Park noted the following:

To what extent did the activity develop children's:

• communications skills? very much

• confidence/resilience? very much

• ability to solve problems/think creatively? very much

• ability to work well with others? very much