Our earth day presentation focused on conserving water. We taught the students that by using less water as an individual, there is more water for the whole. The students learned the affect that one person has on the entire amount of water for the world. This was related to the students through a story/folktale along with a take home list of ways to save water on a daily basis.

We presented to the students that most of the water used is used unnecessarily. Our group explained the many detrimental affects of wasting water, and the many areas of life it can harm. We then asked students about the many times they use water throughout the day, and then offered solutions to saving water every time they turn on the faucet.

In terms of water bottles, the average American uses 175 bottles of water each day (catalyst.com). We made the amount of water wasted real to the students so they could really understand how much water is used. Along with conservation tips, we taught many statics pertaining to water and were surprised when at the end, after being asked what they learned, many students retained these numbers. Many of the students vowed to take shorter showers after learning that 50 gallons of water is lost after a 20 minute shower.

The first and easiest solution for the students was to reduce overall. We told them to reduce shower time to between five, and ten minutes. Next they learned to turn off the faucet when brushing their teeth. Also, they should not water their grass more then once a week for ten minutes. If a leaky faucet can not be repaired, you can place a bucket under it to collect the drip, and then reuse the water to water grass or plants. Finally we sent each student with a water conservation fact sheet, and encouraged the students to share these facts with their family and friends.

As a result of our lesson, I hope that the students will dramatically decrease the total amount of water they use per day. We hope that the kids are now aware of the amount of water they use, and the effect of using it when it is not needed. They learned the many areas of life water is used, and we taught them how to reduce water use in each area. Overall I hope they attempt to use less water and understand the positive effect on the planet their actions have.

Our earth day presentation started with a folktale about a frog named Tiddalik who drank all the water in the pond, leaving none for the other life forms causing them to die. We questioned the students on what they think the moral of the story was. Next we followed up by explaining in further detail, then telling them that if they use up all the water, there won’t be any left for our friends, family and future. We then moved on to explaining water conservation facts, first by asking how they use water in each room of there house. After a student identified each room we explained tips that will reduce the amount of water used in that room. Finally we introduced our activity, “water on water off” similar to red light green light, except they would have to hop, just like the frog. The activity was explained that when the water is turned on, the amount that they hopped was how much water they wasted, but when the water was off, no water is wasted. The students learned the affect that turning off the water has. While the students were grouped together we asked on important fact that they learned from our presentation. After the student identified a fact, they received a frog, and a frog fact sheet to always remind them of the frog in the story, and to conserve water.

In the future, the only thing we could improve upon was that we needed more in depth water conservation tips. We went over each area of the house that water is used in but we could have been more in depth in certain areas of the house, such as the bedroom and the kitchen. Although we expected to have third and fourth grade students, our activity and lesson seemed to be enjoyed by the older students.