And your Students… what do they KNOW about Water? Educating for a Sustainable Future

No factor is so crucial to life, health and human development as water. We all know this, but to commemorate the World Water Day, we’d like to get a reflection from all, young and old.

DID YOU KNOW…

… Although our planet is covered with water, only 3% of it is fresh water?

… The water you drink today might be the same that one day rained in the Amazon or was in Napoleon´s cup?

… To produce a single cotton T-shirt 713 gallons (2,700 liters) of water are being used?

… in many parts of Africa and Asia girls have to walk an average of 3.7 miles (6 km) to get water instead of going to school?

… In U.S. one single person spends an average of 157 gallons (595 liters) of water a day?

… Diseases related to lack of access to safe water and basic sanitation cause 272 million days of school absences per year?

… There are still 884 million people without access to safe drinking water, and 2,600 million who lack access to basic sanitation?

In 2010 the UN recognized access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a fundamental human right, but the reality is that this right is not being guaranteed for millions of people.

Moreover, if we keep exploiting and polluting resources at the same rate in the developed world the situation will only worsen.

So … what do our youngsters learn in schools or at home about water? Are we really educating them on the planet sustainability?

In our hands we have the education of our children, we should make them aware that we live in a shared world, and that what we do here today impacts in an unexpected way elsewhere.

Teaching them how the water cycle works or what the evaporation is, is as important as educating them in solidarity, responsibility and sensibility; cross-educational values that have presence in all our contents.

By using Elesapiens’ Learning Units related to Water, children will discover both the curricular scientific aspects of this element, as well as the more human aspects of it: like how the abundance or absence of water impacts the lives of children in different parts of the world.

They can also understand how we all are connected through the water cycle in the unit “The Magic of Water“; they will discover that a lot of water is needed to produce things in the unit “Conserving Water“, and they will learn how water determines life and ecosystems in the unit “Water and Biodiversity“.

Let us give students the tools to learn and understand, let us invite them to reflect and ask themselves questions. They must build a future where the challenges we have ahead, such as the possible lack of drinking water, can be dealt with.

SOURCES:
UNICEF, Press Centre, April 2010
United Nations,  International Decade for Action “Water for Life” 2005-2015.
Water Footprints of Nations, A. Y. Hoekstra · A. K. Chapagain 1997-2001

 

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