Water and Your World

Water Matters Track Your Water People in the United States rely mostly on either surface water or groundwater, depending on the geological features of where they live. Do some Internet research and/or contact your local water agency to find out the source of your household water. Bonus: Find out whether your water comes to you from a public water agency, a public well, or a private well. Thirsty World By 2050 the world population will be about 10 billion. In addition, increased drought is making less water available for human use.Without more water conservation and recycling, water shortages will spread.With your class, brainstorm some ways people can save water. Then compare your ideas to those suggested on page 13 of this booklet. Great Lakes Walk Over the course of six years, Canada’s native Ojibway Elder Josephine Mandamin and other tribal members walked around all five of North America’s Great Lakes. They found Lake Ontario very polluted, with a terrible odor and dead fish on the shore. In contrast, they found Lake Superior’s water to be of “powerful majesty— so clean, so strong, so pure.” Mandamin’s journey has helped bring attention to the need to preserve all the Great Lakes for future generations. Such a Bargain! Not only is water much healthier than soda, it’s also a LOT cheaper! If you drink five cups of tap water a day, the amount you would use in a year (120 gallons) would cost about 25 cents or less! Do the following equations to find out how the price of water compares to soda. (There are about 10 cans of soda in a gallon.) Where Does Your Water Come From? r 4 There are many water issues on our minds today: how to conserve it, how to keep it clean, and how to keep it available for everyone. Water Molecule O H 2 O: All in the Numbers A water molecule has three atoms: two hydrogen (H) atoms and one oxygen (O) atom. That’s why it is sometimes referred to as H 2 O, which is the chemical formula of water. A single drop of water contains billions of water molecules! Our water supply travels quite a distance before it gets to us for daily use in our homes and schools. After falling as precipitation, it collects either underground, as groundwater, or aboveground as surface water. Groundwater is stored in aquifers, which are layers of soil and rock saturated with water. Aquifers are refilled by rainfall, which soaks slowly down through the soil in a process called infiltration. To get groundwater to us, we pump it up through wells. Surface water is stored in streams, ponds, lakes, or other fresh (not salty) sources. Surface water can also be kept in water tanks or reservoirs (natural or man-made lakes used for storing water). This is sometimes called collection or accumulation. Now calculate the price of 120 gallons of soda and compare that to the cost of the same amount of water. $1.00 x 10 (price of can of soda) (price of gallon of soda) = x (number of gallons) (price of gallon of soda) (price of 120 gallons of soda) = Water and Your World 5