Water Crisis

Megan Brown, Northern Illinois University, Earth, Atmosphere and Environment

Summary

Following the circular economy common exercise, the "Water Crisis" lecture and activity includes information on water resources, direct water use, and virtual water. The activity includes questions placed throughout the lecture. The main activity has the students determine their water footprint and then try to decrease it to the rationing level used in Cape Town, South Africa during the countdown to "Day Zero" in 2018. We also discuss virtual water and how water relates to a circular economy.

Water Conservation, Policy | College Lower (13-14) | Online Adaptable | Public Policy and STEM

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Learning Goals

The learning objectives for the Water Crisis Lecture/Activity are:
1. Identify your daily water footprint
2. Recognize hidden water in your daily life
3. Evaluate how you can reduce your water footprint
4. Distinguish why policy on water use is difficult to make

Context for Use

This activity is a follow-on to the Wicked Problem of an Equitable Zero-Waste Circular Economy module.

This lecture/activity is for a college introductory Environmental Geology course with enrollments up to 75 students. The class is held in a large lecture classroom and was completed during a 75 minute class period. These lesson is situated towards the middle of my course, but does not require prior knowledge to complete. Students do complete "homework" assignments prior to class which act as pre-work on the topics. I use

Description and Teaching Materials

The pre-assignment is a water cycle digital game created by Dr. Emily Fairfax. The game files can be accessed by contacting her through her website: https://emilyfairfaxscience.com

The activity is built into the lecture. Notes about the lecture are included in the slides and all images have alternative text describing the image. During the lecture I ask students questions as an entire class periodically. The students also answer the worksheet questions as indicated in the slides. The first direct water calculation (Question 5) is completed individually. Then when the students try to cut their daily water use (Question 6) they work in pairs or groups of three.

Water Crisis Lecture (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 4.3MB May23 23)
Water Crisis Student Handout (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 32kB May23 23)

Water Crisis Student Handout Key -- educator-only file