“BROKEN” WATER CYCLE! A FRESH WATER SHORTAGE CRISIS!

6th Grade

Write down all of the ways that you used water today.

• Water from sink to brush my teeth and wash my face

• 18 liters for EVERY minute that I took a shower • Water in my coffee• Drinking water

About what percent of the water on Earth is available fresh water?

• About 1 %

How many gallons of water (on average does it take for a bath?)

• 30-40 gallons!

How long many gallons of water does it use up to take a 10 minute shower?

• Almost 5 gallons per MINUTE

How many gallons of water does it take to flush a toilet once?

• 5 gallons

Water Usage

How many gallons of water do washing machines use on average?

• 25 gallons of water per load!

How many gallons of water does it take for washing hands, shaving, and brushing teeth per day?

• About 15 gallons

What are the 5 major uses of fresh water?

• 1) Household purposes: (Example: showering, drinking water)

• 2) Industry: (Example: mining companies need water to cool machinery and flush out mines)

• 3) Transportation (boats, ferries…can pollute fresh water)

• 4) Agriculture (farmers need a lot of water to irrigate their fields)

• 5) Recreation (pools, watering lawns, washing cars)

1) Where We Obtain Fresh Water:

http://ed.ted.com/lessons/where-we-get-our-fresh-water-christiana-z-peppard2) How We Can Conserve Water!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=espNKMCZ1kU

Water used for Industry has increased

• In the early 1900s, American industry used about 10-15 billion gallons of water per day. With a huge growth in industry following World War II, the industrial use of water grew. By 1980, industry was using about 150-200 billion gallons per day

What is the largest consumer of fresh water in the world?

• Hydroelectric plants: capture the kinetic energy of falling water to make electricity by using a dam

• 20% of our electricity in the world is generated by water power

In the United States, more fresh water is used for ________ than for any other single purpose.

• Irrigation: the process of supplying water to areas of land to make them suitable for growing crops.

Colorado River

• In a desert region • Too little precipitation to meet water needs of

people • River flows into 5 states and into Mexico• Used for drinking, irrigation, other uses to the

point that the river’s mouth at the Gulf of California is often dried up before it reaches the ocean

Colorado River

Conservation: the practice of using less of a resource so that it will not be used up What are the 3 R’s?

• 1) Reduce water

• 2) Recycle water

• 3) Reusing water

100+ ways to conserve water: http://wateruseitwisely.com/100-ways-to-conserve/

How can industries reuse, reduce, and recycle water?

• Can reuse water that is used to cool machinery

• Can reduce water use by turning off the faucet while brushing your teeth

• Can recycle water by purifying it

If each student in a class of 25 showered for 5 minutes instead of 10, they would save 2,250 liters of water!

• Every minute of showering uses 18 liters of water!

A few ways to conserve in industry?

• Paper mills now only need half the amount of water that they needed in the 1950s to make the same amount of paper

• Factories use the same pools of water to cool machinery

A few ways to conserve in agriculture?

• Using pipes to carry water to fields reduces water loss. When farmers use open ditches for irrigation, a lot of water tends to evaporate before it reaches the fields

• Sprinkler irrigation and drip irrigation use pipes to conserve water

What are 2 sources of water that are not commonly used but could be used to produce more usable fresh water?

• 1) oceans –can desalinate water by boiling it, freezing it, or pumping it through a filter

• 2) icebergs – melting them

What are the problems with using desalination and melting icebergs?

• 1) desalination –very expensive because of equipment & energy it requires

• 2) icebergs –relocating and melting icebergs could change environment

- Southwest Asia & Santa Barbara, CA use desalination plants