Water Week

This week was filled with student-centered learning activities related to Africa's water crisis - from scarcity and safety to service learning.

Students are certainly developing a much deeper understanding of the importance of clean water and sanitation and how making it accessible to all can help break the cycle of poverty.  For many families, it means an education for their children, sustainable farming and the opportunity to seek meaningful work for adult men and women.  Sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation is an important component of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (aka Global Goals) - a goal that has been a primary focus for us during our study of sub-Saharan Africa.

We kicked off the week with a cross-curricular, inquiry-based science experiment, which required students to investigate possible solutions to cleaning up contaminated water.  Students were assigned to work in small groups and were offered a variety of materials to use to clean up their water supply. Each material was marked with a specific cost and they were to determine the most cost effective solution for cleaning their water supply.  Students quickly realized that this was not going to be an easy task.  Though they tried desperately to filter their water supply to a specified standard of clarity, no single group was able to achieve it.  The takeaway?  Cleaning contaminated water can be challenging and costly.  It was easy to see how the cycle of poverty continues from generation to generation. Without access to clean water, adults and children continually suffer water-borne illnesses, children lose the opportunity for an education, crops cannot be harvested and adults cannot pursue employment. Yes, it was clear just how much water scarcity and safety can significantly limit one's potential. So, we had students imagine what a well or a rain catchment system could do for a small community in sub-Saharan Africa.  This is when students truly realized the importance of the service learning project they'd be participating in this week and the impact it would have, even if only for a small village. Through a week-long fundraising campaign titled "Be The Change, Bring the Change", sixth grade students collected quite a bit of change (an abundance of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters and even some bills) to help support the efforts of The Water Project - a non-profit organization that provides reliable water projects (wells, sand dams, rainwater catchments, sanitation systems, filtration systems and spring protection) to communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Our biggest challenge yet might be in figuring out how we're going to get the large bin of change to the bank so that it can be counted - a problem we're thrilled to have, of course.  Stay tuned next week for an announcement on the results of our fundraising campaign.

Another important component of our "Water Week" involved building background knowledge of the Sudanese Civil Wars, the history of the contentious Dinka and Nuer tribes and the effects of water scarcity in that particular region - all of this leading up to introducing the story A Long Walk To Water by Linda Sue Park.  This coming-of-age story (partially based on a true story) provides a dual narrative of two Sudanese youths during different time periods. The two characters' lives intertwine to demonstrate the importance of family and water and most importantly, hope. Students participated in gallery walks (a gallery of images relating to South Sudan's culture), learned about the traditions of the dominant tribes in the southern region, their success at establishing independence from the north, war over oil resources and the current state of affairs in the world's newest nation and one of the least developed and conflicted regions in the world. The goal of having students engage in these activities was to help contextualize this story.  We've only reached the end of chapter three, but the students' depth of understanding of the experiences of the main characters is evident.  Their questions are most relevant, their ideas are deeply insightful and meaningful and they have already established emotional connections with the main characters. It was tough putting the book down on Friday.  Monday will arrive with great anticipation, for sure.

Students investigating possible solutions to cleaning up a contaminated water source.