In Ms McCormack’s First Class we learned about the importance of water in our daily lives. We discussed all the uses we have for water and why it is important to us. We also discussed what might happen if we were to drink dirty water.
So why were we learning about this to start off with?We had been learning about and discussing people who live in other parts of the world and who might not have the things we have. We began our journey by watching a YouTube video about a little girl living in Africa. This little girl spends her days cleaning and helping her Mum, she also has to walk miles and miles everyday to collect water for her family. The children were shocked to see that the water this little girl was collecting was in fact filthy dirty. This then started the discussion – well how could she clean the water, why don’t they just use a big machine to clean the water.
We soon learned that unfortunately in some countries there is no clean water and no filtration systems to clean the water so therefore children like the boys and girls in first class are drinking dirty water and getting very sick.
First Class watching the video!
This led us to discuss how could the boys and girls in these countries clean the water without big fancy expensive machines. One very bright idea was to use a piece of material with tiny holes in it. This would allow the water to flow through but catch the dirt at the same time.
We decided to conduct an experiment. We decided to use a coffee filter as the material for filtering the water.
We gathered our equipment and got to work! The children poured the dirty water from the tub into the coffee filter which was held up using a funnel. We made predictions about the water – would it still be dirty or would it come out clean?
The dirty water dripping down into a clean glass!
The children were both excited and shocked at the results. The could not believe that the water actually came out clean and was drinkable. There were no traces of dirt in the water that came through the funnel and the filter.
The result!
After completing the experiment and seeing the results the children wrote up a lab report outlining the details of the experiment.
We then showcased our experiment at the Science Fair. Some of the children were scientists for the day and explained to all the children and parents who attended why they conducted this experiment and how they did it.
