Before your students get started creating their posters for the River Round Up poster contest, it is important that they know a little bit about the importance of clean water, what pollution is, and what we can do to help keep our water clean. This page provides several resources for teaching students about clean water as well as some potential talking points to get them thinking about the importance of clean water and how we can keep our waters clean.
Clean Water Teaching Resources
Project WET - Discover Water: The Role of Water in Our Lives (K-5) - This is an interactive module where students can learn about different types of water and different factors that affect water quality.
Water Footprint Calculator (4-12)- This site allows students to put in information about their lifestyle and come up with an average amount of water that they and their household use in a day. It also gives tips on different ways to lower their water footprint. Students can use this on their own, or take it home to show their families.
How’s My Waterway? (6-12) - Students look at the health of waterways at a local, state, and national level. They are able to type in their, or their school’s, zip code and get specific information about the health of the watershed that they reside in. This includes information on the state of their waterways for activities such as swimming and fishing, and the quality of the waterway for aquatic life. It identifies what (if any) specific issues may be causing problems in the watershed.
Clean Water and Pollution Talking Points
Why is clean water important?
- All plants, animals, and humans need clean water to survive.
- Even though the Earth is about 71% water, only 2.5% of the water on Earth is freshwater (rivers, lakes, streams). All humans and most plants and land animals need clean freshwater to survive, so we really don't want it to get polluted.
- When water gets polluted, it harms the environment and the plants and animals that use and live in the water.
What is pollution and where does it come from?
- Water pollution is the contamination of water by trash and chemicals that make the water unusable for humans and animals.
- Pollution can get into the water either directly or indirectly.
- Direct water pollution - trash or chemicals are thrown or dumped right into a body of water
- Indirect water pollution - trash and chemicals are thrown or dumped somewhere within a watershed (an area of land where all of the water flows into one body of water). The trash and chemicals are washed into storm drains which flow into streams, rivers, lakes, or other bodies of water. This means that anything that is thrown or poured on the ground (even somewhere far from a body of water) can be washed into a storm drain and end up in our waterways.
What can I do to help keep our water clean?
- Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle the products that you use
- Only rain down the drain! - don’t put anything down storm drains that doesn't belong there because it will end up in our waterways
- Plant more plants to help stop soil erosion which gets into our waterways
- Create a poster for the River Round Up to help encourage others to join!
