1. Understand water sustainability

Starter

Show pupils 23 litres of water. Explain that the UN suggests each person needs about 23 litres of water to ensure their basic needs for drinking, cooking and cleaning. Using think-pair-share, ask pupils to discuss how they would use their 23 litres of water for one day.

Main Teaching

Pupils should list activities they would prioritise and which they would cut. Play devil’s advocate and ask questions/raise awareness for cleaning dishes, cooling, food (water crops or feed livestock), and the manufacture of goods. Have pupils order the following products in terms of least to most virtual water used in their production: cotton shirt, pair of jeans, bed sheet, 1 kg of beef, 1 kg of wheat.

Career Film: Andy Brown works as the Head of Sustainability at Anglian Water. Click on the tour to find out more about what Andy does as part of his job. 

Expert Film: Andy Brown Anglian's Water Head of Sustainability talks about why it is important to save water.

Mission Assignment

Complete a water audit by calculating your direct use of water use.

Calculate their water footprint. These two calculations will be compared to find out their overall water impact.

Challenge Task:

What will your next step be with respect to water conservation?

The following information is contained in the handout:

(*Make sure students pay attention to low flow or standard models): 

• 1kg of wheat = 1,300 litres of water
• cotton shirt = 4,100 litres
• bed sheet = 9,750 litres
• pair of jeans =10,850 litres
• 1 kg of beef =15,000 litres

Step 1: Students research the average flow rate for each of the following activities (this may be done as homework):

• shower
• taps
• toilet
• bath
• automatic dishwasher
• laundry
• watering yard
• car washing

Step 2: Monitor your water use by timing how long you use the appliance and how many times you use the appliance a day   

Step 3: Calculate your total. For all activities simply multiply the rate of water flow with the total time used. For example:

• 1.5  litres/minute  x 15 minutes = 22.5 litres
• 5.2  litres/flush x 6 flushes = 31.2 litres

Step 4: Answer the following questions for reflection:

1. What surprised you most about your personal water use?
2. What activity do you do that uses the most water? The least water?
3. Which activities do you consider necessary to meet your basic needs?
4. What are at least three steps you can take to reduce the amount of water you consume?
5. How did this audit increase your awareness of water consumption?