Our Precious Water
Water is the very lifeblood of our planet – swirling in oceans and tidal pools; coursing in rivers and streams; residing in pristine lakes and in the life supporting nursery beds of ponds and marshes; percolating through our earth filtration to rest in underground aquifers; cycling from the earth’s surface to the heavens in a never-ending exchange of nourishment; existing in the very tissue of all that we eat; coursing through our own veins; quenching our own thirst.
Life as we know it would not exist here if it weren’t for the very unique properties of water. Every living creature is wholly dependent on clean water for life to exist. As human beings, we all drink from the same well. Water is our common bond, uniting us as human beings and as citizens of this planet.
When we consider how tremendously important water is to all of us, it’s a wonder we treat it the way we do. Wellington Water Watchers has developed a project to engage all secondary level students in our County in developing a real relationship with our water and thereby becoming stewards of this life giving and life sustaining substance.
Students will be encouraged to develop a creative expression to demonstrate their SOS – their call to action for protection and conservation of our precious water. Students will have a chance to create their own “Message in a Bottle”.
All submissions will be show cased at our Celebrate Water Day event – Thursday March 24, 2011 (7:00 pm – 1:00 pm). For this event we have rented the E.L. Fox Uaditorium and will host an open house for anyone in our community to come and see the submissions. We have enlisted the service of some notable celebrities to help us select from these submissions, the pieces that will be included in our “Water Festival” which will tour through the high schools during Earth Week (the week of April 19th).
Our “Water Festival” will provide every student with the opportunity to participate in our Message in the Bottle (MITB) project and receive a stainless steel water bottle for the subsidized price of $5.
Categories for submissions?
- Battle of the Bands (5 minutes maximum)
- Short Video (3-5 minutes)
- Spoken word pieces (1-4 minutes)
Wellington Water Watchers is inviting individuals or teams of high school students across Wellington County to create a submission in a medium of your choice to be our SOS to the world.
What would be your Message in a Bottle?
The submission should focus on:
- Where does our drinking water come from and how might we best preserve this resource for future generations? Explore water cycles, municipal systems, aquifer and groundwater profiling.
- How much does our water cost – financially, environmentally, socially? A comparison between tap water and bottled water or juice made with tap water versus juice boxes, the phenomenal waste generated by plastic bottles as well as the tremendous water wastage for producing plastic, full cost accounting.
- How essential is water to life on this planet – and specifically to our species, and how might we best protect this resource? Unique properties of water that sustain life, ours and other cultures’ perspective of the value of water, water as a common good
Students– we encourage you or your team (with the permission of your team sponsor) to take on some aspect of water you are passionate about, and have fun!
For any questions regarding the submissions, please send an email to wellingtonwaterwatchers@gmail.com
Resources
This is only a sampling of what you might find. Please keep a record of your resources for our later use.
Books
Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. by Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians. ISBN: 978-0-7710-1072-9 (0-7710-1072-9)
Eau Canada: The Future of Canada’s Water.
Edited by Karen Bakker. Excellent collection by a broad range of leading water experts on current state of our water and its vulnerability under climate change and lack of national water policy.
ISBN: 978-0-7748-1340-2.
Inside the Bottle by Tony Clarke. This is a real expose of the bottled water industry. 2nd edition. ISBN:978-088627-536-5.
Films
- Waterlife http://waterlife.nfb.ca/
- FLOW http://www.flowthefilm.com/
- Blue Gold: World Water Wars http://www.bluegold-worldwaterwars.com/
Websites
World Watch Institute – http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5475
New York Times Website – Topics: Bottled Water: http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/w/water/bottled_water/index.html
(CUPE) Canadian Union of Public Employees, New Brunswick. They have a website section called ” Facts about bottled Water:” http://nb.cupe.ca/privatization/the-facts-about-bottled-water
http://www.polarisinstitute.org/
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/28/water-bottles-health.html
Earth Policy Institute: http://www.earth-policy.org/
London on Tap: www.lodonontap.org
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/consumers/bottled-water.html
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