Challenge 20/20 '09-'10

A bore hole water source.  these access underground water that is generally of good quality… but people have to travel to reach the water source.

Ms. Wade helps to carry water for her family.  She said it was hard work and took practice to develop the skill and stamina necessary.

We were fortunate to have a Fay Faculty member come and present to our group last night.  Ms. Wade spent several years in South Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  She shared her experiences and photographs about the water situation in three different countries that she spent time in.  We talked about the pros and cons of different water distribution methods, the challenges of storing water, and the different types of difficulties facing urban vs. rural water deficits.

She also mentioned some of the challenges facing water aid in these countries.  She mentioned two organizations that she felt were making significant contributions in meeting the water needs of the people she spent time with:

PlayPumps Intl.:  http://blog.playpumps.org/home/

Village Health Project:  http://www.villagehealthproject.org/

Please take a moment to share your insightfula nd thoughtful reaction to Ms. Wade’s presentation>

The posts below represent each member’s final ideas and brainstorms.  The descriptions should be clear and should fully flesh out each of their ideas.  Pay per particular attentioin to how the idea will play out over the next 20 years as well as “scale up” from our initial local effort.

We did a demonstration at our meeting where we simulated different types of pollutants to groundwater.  Then we tried to estimate how long it would take for the aquifer to clean itself.  It turns out that different types of pollution take very different types of clean up!

Group 1 = Tanker Truck – dis solvable (soap) <non toxic>  =  # * 12

Group 2 = Tanker Truck – non-dis solvable gas (oil)  <toxic>  =  # 7

Group 3 = Underground tank leaks – pesticide (gelatin)  =  # 6

Group 4 = explosion – (mix all!!)  =  # * 16

~ *indicates and estimated result~

Check out the students thoughts in the following comments!

Students did an inventory of nearly every faucet, toilet and shower at SSIS. They found that there were 10 leaky devices out of 205.

When thinking about our solution- should we focus on prevention of the problem or alleviating the current suffering?  Should we promote awareness or take action?  Should our solution be focused on local or global results?

Take a shot at answering these tough questions so that we can focus our discussion for the next meeting.

Fay students audited their own water usage and found some interesting results.  While the numbers varied amongst the different households, it seemed the common thread was that most students were surprised by just how much water their household was using.  There were also some surprising realizations about *where* and *what* uses the most water…

check out their commenst for their thoughts…

Tonight in our meeting we learned that the average individual in the U.S. uses between 100 and 175 gallons of water per day.  The typical family in Africa uses just over 5 gallons of water per family per day.  We talked about why this may be and one reason we discussed was the easy access to water that many developed nations enjoy.  To better appreciate the difficult work of transporting water, we filled up a few 5 gallon buckets and walked them around a half mile route through our campus.  Check out the comments below to see the student’s reactions…

The studenst at Fay took a look around to see what sort of ideas and solutions are currently being used to help in the fight against water deficits.  In their commenst you can get a sense for what is already being done.

How will conserving water in Southborough, MA (where Fay School is located) play a part in global fight against water deficits?  We live in a town surrounded by reservoirs!  What is the point?

Check out stutdent thoughts in the comment section…

After some initial research, we have seen the breadth of ‘water deficits’ as an issue.  The issue is both local and global, about scarcity and pollution, relies on government aid and is thwarted by government denial.  In the following comments, Fay students will try to sum up and define our issue of water deficits.