A group of kindergarten children were inspecting a jar of water collected from a nearby stream. When Yonas asked, “Can we drink this water?” several children responded, “Eww! No! There’s dirt at the bottom of the jar!” Ms. Ali overhead the exchange and said the water was not safe to drink but they were lucky because they could get clean water from the faucet. The children wondered why they were lucky and Tasha asked, “Doesn’t everyone get water from a faucet? Ms. Ali explained that only one in every three people on the planet had easy access to safe drinking water. So, in their class of 18 children, only six would have clean water to drink. And so began the unit, The Water We Drink.

Day 1: The Water We Drink

Ms. Ali asked the children who inspected the water jar to share what they had learned to their peers. Yonas said, “I wanted to know if we could drink the water in the stream but everyone said it was gross.” Tasha reported, “I thought everyone got water from a sink, but Ms. Ali said most people don’t.” Children immediately stated that they got water from “a sink,” “the faucet,” “a water bottle,” and “the kitchen.” The teacher explained that while they could get clean drinking water, many people have to walk a long distance to get their water. Ms. Ali asked the children, “How far would you walk to get clean drinking water?” After children shared ideas such as “down the street,” “to the store,” and “about a mile,” she told children that she would be reading, The Water Princess (Verde 2016), which was about a little girl, Princess Gie Gie, who walked a long distance everyday with her mother to get water. She asked them to imagine walking with Princess Gie Gie as she read the story. After listening to the story, children were surprised that Princess Gie Gie spent most of her time every day collecting water. They asked questions such as, “Does Princess Gie Gie go to school?” “Does she play with friends near her home?” “Does she have an iPad to play games?” and “Why doesn’t Princess Gie Gie and her mom have water in their house?” After answering their questions, Ms. Ali reiterated how fortunate they were to live in a place where they could easily get safe water to drink and that they would be learning more about the importance of clean water.

In the coming days, children would learn more about natural resources (ESS3.A) and how humans use water and how this can affect the world around them (ESS3.C; NGSS Lead States 2013). Children would be implementing the science and engineering practice of Developing and Using Models by constructing an aquifer, as well as the crosscutting concept of Systems and System Models by constructing a water filtration system. Children would also learn solutions for reducing their impact on water (K-ESS3-3).

Day 2: Using Water Every Day

Ms. Ali asked students how far Princess Gie Gie walked to bring water to her family and they exclaimed, “A long way!” She explained that when people do not have easy access to clean water, it is called water scarcity. Pointing on a globe map, the teacher said that Princess Gie Gie lived in a country called Burkina Faso. She then pointed to Eritrea, also in Africa, to Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, and to India and said that many families in these countries also faced water scarcity.

Ms. Ali pointed to the United States and said, “This is where we live. Do you think it is easy or hard for people where we live to get fresh water?” The children quickly said “Easy!” She then wrote “Where We Get Water” on a chart and asked children where they got water to drink and she wrote their responses “the kitchen,” “the bathroom,” “the sink,” “at school,

“a water bottle” “water fountains” and “a grocery store.” The teacher wrote “How We Use Water” and asked what they used water to do and children identified the activities such as “taking a bath,” “cooking,” “swimming,” “washing clothes,” “watering flowers,” and “giving water to a pet,” which she recorded. This allowed the children to tap into their understanding of ideas related to natural resources and how humans use water.

Ms. Ali explained that we have easy access to water because we have indoor plumbing, which supplies water to sinks, toilets, and bathtubs and showers. The children were surprised to learn that many families around the world, including some in the United States, live in homes without indoor plumbing. She followed up by reading Why Water’s Worth It (Harrison 2019) and children drew pictures representing why water was important in their science journal.

Day 3: Finding Out Where Water Comes From

After reviewing their responses to “Where We Get Water,” Ms. Ali showed the children an illustration from Our Environment: Everything You Need to Know (Pasquet and Dumont 2020) and pointed to and explained that the water in the lake, river and bay is called surface water. Surface water is water on the ground and that we can see. She also pointed to the aquifer, a layer of rock and soil that holds water, and to the groundwater. Groundwater, which is water under the surface, is harder to gather than surface water, but in many places with water scarcity, it is the only source of clean water. Ms. Ali told children that the water in their community comes from a nearby river and reservoir, and she read the “Fresh Water” chapter from Our Environment (Pasquet and Dumont 2020). Also, because it takes time and reflection to create child-friendly definitions that are simple, accurate, and complete and do not use other sophisticated words (Zucker, Cabell, and Pico 2021), Ms. Ali identified several key words in advance so children could develop definitions as the words were encountered in the texts (see Figure 1).

Next, Ms. Ali made a model of an aquifer (See Figure 2 for a list of materials needed for all activities) with sand, modeling clay, rocks, and water. First, she removed the nozzle and tube from a clean spray bottle, covered the bottom of the tube with a piece of nylon stocking, and secured it with a rubber band. She taped it to the inside of a small fish tank so that the end of the tube was near the bottom of the tank but not touching it. Second, she filled the bottom of the tank with about 1 inch of sand and poured enough water on the sand so that it was wet but there was no standing water. Third, she flattened a large piece of modeling clay and placed it in the tank so that it covered most of the sand. This prevented water from seeping through to the sand. Fourth, she placed clean rocks of various sizes into the fish tank and made a small hill. Finally, as the children carefully watched, she poured water, dyed blue with food coloring, into the tank until the valley became partly filled with water and part of the rocky hill was still visible. Children were excited to see a pond form and the water flow through the rocks. Children remembered that the water collecting in the rocks and sand was groundwater and, with prompting, that the pond was surface water.

In small groups, before children constructed their own mini aquifers, Ms. Ali reviewed procedural and safety expectations, including not throwing any materials, cleaning up spills, and washing their hands after using the materials. First, children put a little sand in the bottom of a clear plastic cup and Ms. Ali helped them pour water into the cup, telling them that the sand needed to be saturated or full of water. Second, they flattened some modeling clay and covered most of the sand with it. Third, they put small rocks into their cup. Finally, children slowly poured clean water into their cups and watched the water flow downward. The children were excited to show their friends their aquifer (Figure 3), and draw and label pictures of them in their science journal.

By making an aquifer and drawing and labeling its parts, children were addressing the Next Generation Science Standards crosscutting concept of Systems and System Models. This activity also provided children the opportunity to use new vocabulary such as groundwater and surface water. Ms. Ali used a rubric (see Supplemental Resources) to assess students’ learning to make informed instructional decisions. For example, based on children’s responses, she recognized the importance of repeating words (e.g., aquifer, surface water, groundwater) and prompting children to use those words during conversations about their aquifer and when drawing in the science journal. She continued to use this rubric throughout the unit.

Day 4: Getting Fresh Water

Since the water many people drink is stored underground, children asked, “How do you get water out of the ground?” in previous lessons. Ms. Ali first showed the children a picture of people getting water from an open well with a bucket. She then showed people getting groundwater from a well with a hand pump. Turning to the class aquifer, Mr. Ali explained that they could use the nozzle and tube from the spray bottle as a hand pump. After priming the pump or removing the air from the tube, the teacher sprayed the water into a paper towel. Children enthusiastically took turns squirting water and were even more excited to learn that they could add a well to their aquifer. In small groups, Ms. Ali provided eyedroppers, spray bottle nozzles with short tubes, and wide straws that had been cut in half (see Figure 4) to try different ways to remove the water. Children used the eyedropper to suction water through the straw or a nozzle and tube to pump water from their aquifer. Ms. Ali showed children how to place a straw in the aquifer and then a finger over the opening to remove water. Children learned how groundwater could be retrieved.

Day 5: Contaminating Water

Reminding the children that not everyone had easy access to clean water, Ms. Ali read the chapter “Threats to Our Fresh Water” (Pasquet and Dumont 2020) and the class discussed how water could be polluted by fertilizers and pesticides used on farms or in gardens, gas and oil used for cars and trucks, household supplies like soap, and even excrement. She then announced, “Today is the day we contaminate or make our water dirty!” While some children were excited, others were quite upset. Ms. Ali explained it was important to understand how water gets contaminated so that they could prevent it. She placed loose coffee filters over clear plastic cups and secured them with a rubber band. Then, after reviewing procedural and safety expectations, children placed assorted materials such as drops of liquid soap, spoonful of coffee grounds, and dryer lint on top of the coffee filter. They carefully “rained” water over the materials and watched the water slowly seep through the filter to become polluted (see Figure 5). Children used their new vocabulary as they talked about how, “I contaminated my water with lots of soap” and “My pollution stinks” in reference to the coffee grounds. Finally, they drew pictures of items they learned might pollute rainwater and made a “do not” symbol (i.e., red circle with backslash) over it. This activity allowed children to begin addressing K-ESS3-3: Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment.

Day 6: Cleaning Dirty Water

Children arrived to school asking questions such as, “When are were going to clean our dirty water?” “How are we going to clean our water? and “Will we able to drink our dirty water when it’s clean?” They watched “Turn Dirty Water into Clean Water!” and in small groups, constructed a filtration system with their teacher, which allowed them to engage in the science and engineering practice of modeling. First, the children added cotton balls to an inverted plastic bottle with the bottom cut off, then they added sand and some small rocks. Children put their inverted bottle into a large cup and added their dirty water. As the water filtered down through the layers, it collected in the cup (see Figure 6). Some children noticed they were using rocks and sand like in their aquifers and Ms. Ali explained that an aquifer is nature’s filtration system. She told them that they used the cotton ball to help catch some of the dirt, too. Some children were disappointed because their water still looked a bit dirty, but Ms. Ali explained that engineered filtration systems could take out more contaminants. She also showed them how Maman in the book The Water Princess filled the pot with dusty water and then boiled it to make safe for drinking. Last, children learned how a community’s filtration system cleans water to make it safe to drink as their teacher read the section chapter “Drinking Water” (Pasquet and Dumont 2020). Children added to their science journal by drawing and labeling the infiltration system they had constructed.

Days 7–8: The Importance of Water and Conserving It

The class watched “Save Water to Help the Earth,” listed what they learned, and drew pictures of themselves conserving water (e.g., turning off water when brushing their teeth, taking a short shower) in their science journals. Thus, children continued addressing K-ESS3-3: Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment. On the last day of their unit, Ms. Ali read We Are Water Protectors (Lindstrom 2020). She also told the children how proud she was of their curiosity and hard work to learn about the water we drink and how to protect it.

Conclusion

Water is critical to our health and well-being, yet one in three people do not have access to safe drinking water. Earth’s water is threatened by pollution, deforestation, urban growth, and climate changes. To help people understand the importance of water and how we can help our planet and help each other, the United Nations has declared March 22 as World Water Day. Ms. Ali and her students hope you help support this important event. ●

Online Resources

Table 1: https://www.nsta.org/sites/default/files/journal-articles/S%2BC_MarchApril_2022/Bradley_table_1.pdf

Save Water to Help the Earth: https://youtu.be/rl0YiZjTqpw

Turn Dirty Water into Clean Water! by Chirp Science Corner by Owlkids: https://youtu.be/vh_63fV1lgI

Barbara A. Bradley (barbarab@ku.edu) is a professor of reading education at the University of Kansas. A. Allen Bradley Jr. is a professor and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Iowa.