Life Without Taps

As part of our Science topic 'The Water Cycle', we learned what life would be like with no taps to get fresh water.

We are very lucky in Scotland as we can access fresh, clean water instantly. In our class we had between 4 and 12 taps per home! 

Across the world, one tenth of the population do not have access to clean water in their home. We were shocked to hear that some children have to walk over 3km a day to collect water and this might have to be done 2 or 3 times a day. 

As a result, many children across the world are missing out on an education as most of their day is spent collecting water for the family. 

We played a game called 'Life Without Taps' to experience what it is like to be in their shoes. The children were grouped into 6 families and they had to take it in turns to walk to the river and collect 1 bucket of water until they had enough for all of their seven basic needs: drinking, cooking, washing, cleaning, animals, food crops and cash crops. In order to receive their bucket of water, they had to work as a team to colour in a large bucket, place it inside their plastic bucket and carry it on their head down the river. However, some of these needs required more than 1 bucket and they had to make more than 1 trip. 

Along the way, the children were given chance cards with real life problems the children might face, therefore this affected their journey. For example, one card said 'The water collected from the river was dirty and 3 of your family members have been infected by a disease called Cholera. You must stop work for 5 minutes.' 

The children gained a much deeper understanding of what it is like for children who have no clean water, as they found this task challenging and they required to work very hard as a family to collect the water they needed.

Max said, "I thought the game was fun but hard, so I can imagine what it is like for them."

Jo-Ann said, "I feel sorry for the children who do this because they miss out on an education."

Katie said, "I realise how hard it is for them because they have to walk really far and they do that everyday." 

Next week we will be writing to our local MP to raise awareness of this situation. 

The Water Cycle

Our Science topic this term is all about the Water Cycle. 

Firstly, we learned that water is a type of matter made up of lots of tiny particles in the form of a solid , liquid or gas. Water can change states from a solid to a liquid then gas through the Water Cycle, by heating and cooling. 

Water can change from a solid (ice) to a liquid by heating and this is known as 'melting'. It can then change from a liquid into a gas through heating and this is known as 'evaporation'. Water then cools down and 'condenses' into a liquid again. A liquid can be turned into a solid by freezing it. 

This is known as the Water Cycle as this process will keep on repeating itself. We learned that there is never new water and  the water we drink could have been walked on by the dinosaurs! 

In class we created our own mini Water Cycle to see this process in action. We placed boiling hot water inside a plastic cup and put it inside a large, clear plastic bowl. We covered it tightly with cling film and observed the water evaporating to form condensation. We had a look at our bowls the next day to discover that the water had cooled, the condensation had disappeared and there was a puddle of water at the bottom of our bowl! 

We then tested the Water Cycle outdoors as there were lots of puddles in our playground. We drew round these with chalk and checked them only 1 hour and 30 minutes later to discover some of the puddles had completely evaporated. We were amazed at how quickly the water had started to evaporate already! 

Before

After