Resources and Ideas for a lesson about Water

It´s Blog Action Day again and this year it´s about water.

I have found many interesting infographics and stats that can be used as starting points in the debate about water in the world. Infographics are great for visual literacy and to get students thinking and producing language from facts. I thought I would share these with you. 

http://peoplepoweredmachines.wordpress.com/tag/rain-barrel/

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_SDd59HFkDQI/ScInIFb1vgI/AAAAAAAAAfk/QHIG5i5D8sw/s800/water-footprint-of-individual.jpg

http://solaquagen.com/page001.html

http://www.americainfra.com/news/us-hit-peak-water-in-1970/

http://virtualwater.eu/

http://theredmullet.blogspot.com/2009/08/water-footprints.html

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/05/20/1179601242802.html

http://wineindustryinsight.com/?p=1415

http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Original_Graphic/2008/06/14/1213462663_8520-1.gif

Other websites with plenty of resources on water education are

• Water Education Foundation 
• Unesco´s Institute for Water Education
•  Project WET
•  Water Research Centre

 It would then be interesting to make students calculate their water footprint

 

To do this you can use National Geographic´s Water Footprint calculator or Water Footprint´s quick or extended calculator

After you do this, you can ask your students to brainstorm and debate ways of saving water, which they can later post to a Wallwisher

Alternatively they can also do an image search for water education campaigns and discuss the images used.

If you have any oher ideas, please leave a comment.

If you feel like doing a bit more

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Climate Change Interactive on Blog Action Day

Today is Blog Action Day and this year the topic is global climate change. You can link to them at www.blogactionday.org

I thought the most appropriate thing to do is to choose my favourite Climate Change web 2.0 tool and share it. So here it is!

Bloom (Smart choices for the carbon conscious) is an interactive tool from the BBC that lets you explore what to do about CO2 and read about how each action contributes to the world. Then you can select which actions to pledge to and strive to act carbon consciously.



There are two versions of Bloom: a basic version and an animated version. Needless to say, the animated version is amazingly beautiful.

You can give it a try yourself and use it to introduce the topic of climate change to your classes!