Green Schools

TEN USEFUL TIPS TO REDUCE WATER CONSUMPTION IN YOUR HOME:

• Fix Leaks
• Put the stopper in the sink.
• Shower instead of having a bath.
• Use water butts to store rain water and then use it to water flowers.
• Use a full load in washing machine.
• Turn on dishwasher only when full.
• Boil the kettle with the required amount of water.
• Turn off the tap while washing your teeth.
• Wash ‘clean’ dishes before the dirty dishes.
• Place something solid for example a brick in the cistern. The volume of the brick is equal to approx. 1.5 litres and therefore will save water when you flush the toilet.

 

 

 

How has the experience of Green Schools benefited the school?

• The Green Schools experience has allowed us to become more aware of how water is used. We now know how we use water but also how we waste water. Because of this we can take action to try and save as much water as we can.

• We know about the importance of water and the cost of water to the school. Due to this we can set targets to reach so that the school community can save water.

• The Green Schools committee has learned to work together and to brainstorm. We have set up a competition, made announcements over the intercom and ran activities in the G.P for the rest of the school. We have also asked the principal to put notices up in the G.P.

Thanks to the Green School project, we have become more educated about water and its uses. This means that we can further educate our families and the rest of the community

 

Lisa Mc Daniels - Talk

Wednesday 25/4/10

Today is water conservation day and to highlight this, the Green schools committee decided to invite someone in to talk to the school about water use and conservation.

Lisa started off by telling us a few facts about water such as:

• we need to drink about 3 litres of water a day to maintain a healthy diet,
• approximately 70% of our bodies is made up of water, much the same as the earth,
• 1.2 billion people on the earth don’t have access to clean drinking water.

After this, Lisa set up an example of how water is distributed around the earth. She had some 5 litre bottles of water and three jugs. The jugs represented the sea, freshwater and the ice caps. She asked a volunteer to go up and measure out the percentage of water they thought belongs to each jug. After this was done she measured out the real percentage. We found out that 97% of the earth’s water is in the sea, only 1% is freshwater and 2% is in the ice caps.

Lisa told us about the water cycle and how water can be recycled for re-use.

She then set up a workshop and split the class up into groups. She gave each group an envelope with cards in it. Some had pictures of everyday uses of water and some had an amount, in litres, of water.

The idea of this workshop was to see if we could match each action to an amount of water correctly. When we had matched them up she asked various students to say what their group had matched. When everyone had said one, she told us the real amounts. We found out that

• a bath = 80 litres
• a shower = 35 litres
• a power shower = 125 litres
• to flush an average toilet = 9 litres
• a tap turned off while brushing your teeth = 1litre per minute
• a tap turned on while brushing your teeth = 6 litres per minute
• to wash a car with a hosepipe = 500 litres per hour
• to wash a car with a bucket = 10litres
• a dishwasher = 20 litres
• a washing machine = 65 litres

Most of these figures shocked the class but through this exercise we found out how to save water, for example – take a shower instead of a bath and turn the tap off while brushing your teeth.

Lisa introduced us to hippo bags. The idea of hippo bags is to save water when a toilet is flushed. Most modern toilets only use 6litres in the cistern but, older models of toilets can use from 9-12litres per flush. The hippo bag is a bag that can be discreetly put into the cistern of a toilet; it holds 3litres of water and therefore cuts down the amount of water used to flush the toilet. She informed us that schools use 80-90% of water on toilets and we all agreed that hippo bags were definitely a good idea.

To finish the class, Lisa gave each group a small tank of water and key cards. In the water were various types of freshwater insects and animals. Using the key cards we had to try and figure out what animals we had in our tanks. The idea of this was to tell us how clean the water in each tank was, as different animals live in water of different pollution levels.

 

Amount of taps in the school

Staff Room
2
Staff Toilet (m)
2
Staff Toilet (f)
2
Toilet (m)
2
Toilet (f)
3
Outside
1
Room 7
13
Room 8
14
Room 9
2
Room 10
3
Room 13
1
Total = 45

How much water comes out of a tap in five seconds?

Result: 600ml (per five seconds), multiply by 12, divided by 1000

= 7.2 (Litres per minute)