Session 4: Clean Water for All

Session 4: Clean Water for All

Is Your School’s Tap Water Clean?
Water treatment is the process of cleaning and testing water before it reaches your home, school, and community. Find out where your school’s tap water comes from, and whether it has been through the water-treatment process.

Try This!

Water-Treatment Process
Is Your Tap Water Treated?

Water-Treatment Process

Read to Learn
Follow the steps of the water-treatment process:

image: water-treatment process

Untreated water passes through screens that trap large objects, such as leaves

A chemical, such as alum, is added to the water, causing small particles to clump together.

The clumps sink and are removed

The partially cleaned water passes through a filter consisting of charcoal, sand, and gravel to remove most of the remaining impurities.

Chemicals such as chlorine may be added to kill harmful bacteria, and fluoride might be added to reduce tooth decay in children.

The treated water is stored in a reservoir.

Once all of these steps are completed, the treatment plant sends the treated water to surface or groundwater reservoirs. From there, water can repeat its journey through the water cycle roughly every 12 days.

Do to Learn: Computer Lab
Follow a drop of water...
www.epa.gov/OGWDW/kids/treat.html

Extension Activity: Classroom and Field Trip
Invite a local water official to your class to talk about the sources of water for your school. This person might bring slides, photographs, or videos of your school’s water source. It may be possible to follow this with a trip to the local water-treatment plant.

Is Your Tap Water Treated?

Read to Learn
Drinking water starts as rainwater. It is collected underground or on Earth’s surface, and then it’s piped to your tap. Most big cities have complicated water-supply systems that pipe water to many thousands of people. In rural areas, the water in each house may come directly from an underground well. Most tap water comes from one of these sources: a public or private well, river, lake, or reservoir.

Do to Learn: Classroom
Use an atlas in your classroom to find the closest water source to your school. Your teacher will tell you the name of the local agency that manages your school’s water supply.

Computer Lab
Who’s In Charge of Your Water? Find out at www.awwa.org/community/links.cfm?LinkCategoryID=20.

Choose your state from the list, and then find the name of the agency that manages your school’s water. As you explore their Web site, look for answers to the following questions:

Where is your school’s water coming from?
Is your school’s tap water treated?
What are some of the pollutants in your school’s tap water?
What are some things the agency is doing to fight pollution?

If you want to find more information about where your tap water is coming from, send an e-mail message with your questions to the USGS Geological Survey at h2oinfo@usgs.gov.

Be patient! It might take a few days to make contact and get the information you are looking for. In the meantime, brainstorm and make predictions about where your water comes from, the possible pollutants in your water, and if your water is treated. When you do get a response, remember to compare your predictions with what you found out.

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