The United States needs to take special care of its water supply. It is so hard to find pure drinking water. We have to create acceptable drinking water by filtration or by treating polluted water with chemicals. Companies dump toxic wastes into waterways which affect public drinking water and may cause fatal diseases. Individuals who care little about others and the environment may put human wastes, dirty drug paraphernalia, and trash in waterways that affect or drinking water.
We can help prevent some pollution by choosing detergents that are low in phosphates as well as other cleaning agents. We can also use more advanced waste treatment methods to remove a high percentage of phosphates from effluents of sewage treatment and industrial plants before they reach a lake. Farmers can be required to plant buffer areas of trees or other vegetation between their fields and nearby lakes or other surface waters. Much aquatic life has been disrupted and destroyed because of the lack of attention given to this matter. Phosphates are nutrients that can cause rapid aquatic weed growth, demanding oxygen and choking fish.
Much of the water withdrawn in our country is for cooling electrical power plants. Water is withdrawn from nearby surface water, passed through the plant, then the heated water is returned to the same body of water. This is the cheapest and easiest way to cool turbines and other moving machine parts. This drastic temperature change kills much of the aquatic life, animals and plants. This is referred to as thermal pollution. We all can affect change here by using and wasting less electricity, returning the heating water to a point farthest from the vulnerable shore zone, and limiting the number of power plants discharging heated water into the same location.
The lake ecosystem can be covered in greater depth at some other time but I want to focus more on our drinking water.
Contrary to popular belief, not just any kind of drink or fluid can produce the preventive and/or medicinal effects on the human body that water—pure water—does! The body can’t resupply the water loss through sweating, crying, urinating, spitting, etc., on its own. We have to drink it, six to eight cups a day minimum. Good clean water will aid in flushing out the system and is great for the kidneys. When wastes remain in the body for a long period of time decay, illness, disease and death can result.
Because of the lack of importance put on water, clean water and its frequent consumption, the effects on our society have been dehydration, headaches, some back pains , congestion, constipation, skin irritations like eczema, and colon cancer. Our bodies are screaming for water. Are you listening?
Now that we have established our great need of clean water let’s look at some ways of identifying water that may be unfit to drink. Let’s do some tests...
LESSON #2-Water: Good or Bad
Main Idea:
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To recognize water that may not be suitable to drink.
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Objective:
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Identify water that may need to be tested.
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Compare poisoned water to diluted poisoned water
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Time:
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30 minutes
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Materials
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strawberry syrup, milk, water, paper, pencil, 5 cups (clear), two teaspoons garlic powder, 1 teaspoon of minced onions (dried)
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Procedure:
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1. Question will be asked-How can you tell that something may be wrong with the water? (wait for responses)
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2. Have one student fill one glass with water 3/4 full.
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3. Have another student add 2 drops of the strawberry syrup to it and stir.
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4. Have another student fill another glass with water 3/4 full.
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5. Have another student add two teaspoons of garlic powder to it and stir.
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6. Have another student fill another glass with water 3/4 full.
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7. Have another student add the minced onions to it. Place the three cups where all could observe.
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8. Question-What would you say was wrong if you received these three glasses of water? Signals they need testing.
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9. Have a student fill one glass (clean) with milk 3/4 full.
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10. Have another student add 2-3 drops of the strawberry syrup to that milk and stir.
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11. Have another student fill the last glass with milk.
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12. Have another student add about 20 drops to that glass and stir.
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13. Question- If the syrup was a poisonous substance which glass would you drink if you had to drink one? Would the diluted one be safer? Why or Why not? It’s hard to know this because it would depend upon the toxicity of the contaminant.
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Conclusion:
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1. Would it be better to dilute water if the contaminants could not be removed?
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2. What are some of the signals you can look for in case of possible water pollution?
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The purpose here is to rely on the senses-taste, smell, appearance. Yet what about invisible poisons? If one drop per glass were poisonous—but invisible how would we know? We need to rely on government testing.