Future of Water

November 14, 2018
Has lesson plan

The increasing scarcity of drinking water is beginning to capture the world’s attention – but surprisingly, an innovative solution might just be found in one of the Earth’s driest places.

In the newest installment in our What Happens Next series, we travel to Windhoek, Namibia, a city near the world’s oldest desert, where they’ve tapped a radical, and unlikely, source of water to set their community up for a more sustainable future.

Educators, click below for this video’s accompanying lesson plan and check out our Environmental Education Collection.

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For teachers
  • Producer: María Villaseñor
  • Producer: Erik German
  • Associate Producer: Charu Raman
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For Educators

Subjects
Environment Geography Science 
Topics
Climate Change Domestic Policy Engineering
Introduction

The increasing scarcity of drinking water has captured the world’s attention and driven scientists and conservationists to find solutions. This ten-minute video and accompanying lesson has students examine how the country of Namibia has tapped an unlikely source of water to combat shortages and experiment with water filtration materials and strategies.

Lesson Plan 1: Testing the Future of Water
Testing the Future of Water
Testing the Future of Water
Environmental Education
Overview
▼

Students will learn how the country of Namibia has tapped an unlikely source of water to combat shortages, and experiment with water filtration materials and strategies.

Objectives
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Students will:

  • List and describe ways that humans obtain water to fill their needs.
  • List and describe ways that humans make water unfit for use.
  • Test the effectiveness of a variety of materials that may be used to filter water.
Essential questions
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  • What makes water unsafe for consumption?
  • How hard is it to filter and purify water for human use?
  • How do humans waste water resources and how can they change that behavior?
Additional resources
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Standards
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  • Next Generation Science Standards
    • HS-ETS1-1:Analyze a major global challenge to specify qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for solutions that account for societal needs and wants.
    • HS-LS2-7. Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics: Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.
    • MS-ETS1-2:Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
    • MS-ETS1-4:Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.
    • MS-LS2-4 Ecosystems:Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics: Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.
    • 3-5-ETS1-2:Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.