Saving Water At Home

Split the class into five groups. Sending students to a numbered station as they walk in is the quickest way to do it.

Give each group a sealed envelope of cards. Every card names one thing a person could do to save water. Tell them not to open it yet.

Explain the task. The group has to sort the cards into two piles: saving water you can see coming out of a tap, and saving the hidden water inside food and things we buy. Direct, and virtual. Tell them to use what they worked out in the last two sessions.

Say go, and start a timer for three minutes.

At three minutes say stop. Everyone steps back from the table.

Go round with the answer key and count each group's correct sorts. If a group has missed some, give them one more try rather than the answer. When every group has it right, say so and move on.

Go over the answers with the whole class, then ask three questions. Which cards confused you most? (Usually the ones that look like they have nothing to do with water.) Where did those cards end up? (In the virtual pile.) So what is virtual water? (The water it took to make something, spent before the thing ever reached you.) Remind them that the last session was about the water hidden in food. This one widens it to everything else.

Next, a short thought exercise. Students can stay where they are or form five fresh groups.

Afterwards, open it out. What we use water for at home. The ways we get through it without noticing — the tap left running, the tank left overflowing, the RO unit throwing away more than it gives. And where the water was before it was in the tap: a river, a borewell, a tanker, a tank on the roof.

Show the class a water-saving poster and ask them to judge it rather than admire it. Does it actually tell you anything? What works? What would you walk straight past? (Answers usually land on: it is colourful; there are enough ideas but not too many; the pictures pull you in.)

Give every group a copy of the poster, a copy of the awareness campaign worksheet, and one of the five topics on the poster.

Set the brief. They are a design team, hired to make posters that will teach their own school how to save water. The client wants five posters, one from each team.

Walk through the worksheet. First they list ways to save water in their topic. Then they mark each idea direct or virtual. Then they research to find more. Then they build it into a poster somebody would actually stop and read.

While they work, move between the teams. Push them towards a mix of direct and virtual ideas, and towards fewer, better ones — a poster in a corridor gets three seconds, not three minutes.

Each team presents its poster to the class, and says anything else it found that would not fit on the page.

Now each student works alone. Hand out the personal plan sheet. They begin by listing direct and indirect ways they could cut their own water use, under each of the five topics.

After a couple of minutes, move them on to choosing one or two ideas per topic that are specific and genuinely doable, and starring those. Specific means: I will fill a bucket instead of leaving the tap running while I bathe. I will switch the motor off before the overhead tank overflows. I will wash the scooter with a bucket, not a hose. The water left in my glass goes to a plant, not down the sink.

Finally, they copy the starred items onto the last page. That is the plan. Tell them to take it home and put it where the family can see it. The ones that get argued about at home are the ones that change something.