Last night I had the dubious
honour of shepherding twenty-five excitable 11 – 14 year olds. I am an Assistant
Scout Leader and our topic last night was ‘water’. Due to my background, I led
the evening. I am fairly experienced public speaker, but I confess to a real
sense of trepidation as I entered the Scout Hut. This was an audience that
could go native very, very, quickly. Lively and boisterous, with a proven
tendency to boil-over exceptionally swiftly. It is part of the charm/challenge
of scouting (….or at least it is if you are the Assistant
leader!)
I had planned three activities
(see below). I share them here, just in case you find yourselves in similar
situation. Feel free to plagiarise and adapt. The first activity involved
encouraging the children to appreciate just how little of the earths water is
actually readily available for human use. By getting the children to think of
themselves as representing all the water on earth we quickly concluded that 24
of them were sea water and just one of them represented all the fresh water
sources. I then chose a scout and stood him in the middle of the room and we
put PostIts on him to mark the various fresh water sources (ice caps,
permafrost, atmosphere, lakes, etc). The conclusion was that essentially it was
just his ears that were easily available water (he had large ears).
The second activity was a
water-fact quiz where I gave them the answers but they had to select the right
answer as I read out each question. This proved to be particularly successful,
with the children properly engaging on some of the issues, whilst at the same
time apparently having fun. Most importantly however it enabled me to relive my
game-show host fantasy. Next time I shall wear a sparkly blazer too.
For the third activity I laid
out 13 different items on a table (piece of toast, apple, chocolate bar, bottle
of wine, a T-shirt etc) and they had to rank them in order of embedded water
(ie the water used to produce the product). This was less successful. Half the
troop failed to understand the task, while most of the rest just wanted to eat
the products. Next time I am just using pictures. In two weeks’ we are doing an
evening on wastewater, I am already planning my activities.
I have no doubt that the reason
for the nights success was down to the sound advice my wife, Stella, gave me
before the evening began. She is a teacher and knows her stuff. I now intend to
use these same skills and strategies in the work place. For example, if people
are talking over me or just not listening will stand silently in the centre of
the room with my arm in the air until everyone else does exactly the same (I
didn’t need to explain this rule, they all did it by rote. How cool is that?).
Also, rather than liberally ripping into someone when they do something
annoying I will patiently and enthusiastically praise the (few) things that
they got right (Apparently the carrot is stronger than the stick. Who knew).
And finally, recognising that
adults also have short attention spans I will pause every meeting after 20
minutes for an active, full-on game that gets the niggles out of the system.
‘WipeOut’ is a particular favourite. Everyone stands in a circle while a person
in the middle swings a rope with a ball on the end in a circle at floor level.
People jump over the ball until, inevitably, someone gets hit and crashes to
the floor. They are out. Everyone laughs. We move on. It is just dangerous
enough to be exciting and not quite dangerous enough to cause any real lasting
harm.
There was a proposal last night
that rather than jumping over the ball at floor height it should be swung at
head level and people should duck instead. This is clearly a terrific idea and
will be the core of my new venture :‘Office WipeOut’. I wonder if
I can register the concept in time for the Christmas market…
Activity 1
Equipment: pens, paper, PostIt notes
Get children
to list all the sources of water they can think of. Give a point for each
source and 5 points for any source that no other team has thought of. Bring the
group together in a circle and share answers.
Split group to represent each of the main water sources. Once you get
down to a single child representing all the fresh water use PostIt notes to
highlight how much of their body is the different water types.
Source % Child
equivalent (assuming a group of 24)
Fresh water 2.5% 1
OF WHICH
Locked in Glaciers 69 legs and torso
Ground water 30 arms and head
Surface water 1 ears
OF THE
SURFACE WATER
Lakes 21%
Ice/Permafrost 69%
Atmosphere/soil/Swamps/Living
things 3%
Conclusion:
if the whole troop was equivalent to all the water on the planet then the most
useful sources of water equate to about a childs earlobes…
Activity 2
Equipment: 80lt bin and a 2 lt bottle
(to show volumes), 4 sets of cards with all the numbers on them
Split the
group into teams. Give each team the cards with the numbers/ answers. Read out the questions and get each team to
pick the number that they think gives the answer. Provide the answers live so
they can recycle the number if it was wrong (ie use it again)
The amount
of water on the planet that is accesable for human use (rounded to the nearest
percentage) 1%
The number
of people who lack access to clean water 1
billion
The number
of people who lack access to adequate sanitation 2.5 billion
The
percentage of diseases in developing countries that are related to contaminated
water 80%
The number
of deaths per year due to contaminated water 2.2million
The distance
walked on average in developing countries every day just to collect water
(mostly by women and children) 6km
The World
Health organisations recommended minimum amount of water per head per day 25lt
The average
amount of water used in the UK per head per day 168lt
The average
amount of water used in the US per head per day 250lt
The target
amount of water used for new modern ‘green’ homes 132lt/head/day
The amount
of water consumed in Haiti per head per day 2.1Lt
The average
amount of household income spent on water in a developing country 25%
The average
amount of household income spent on water in a developed country 1%
The %
sanitation coverage in developing countries 49%
The %
sanitation coverage in developed countries 98%
Amount of
all fresh water used by humans that is used for agriculture (especially cotton,
rice and sugar) 70%
No of
countries expected to be in severe drought stress by 2025 48
Percentage
of world population expected to be
living in severe drought stress by 2025 35%
The value
multiplier UNESCO quote as being achieved for every $1 spent on water 12
Activity 3
Equipment: a photo or actual item of
each of the products listed below
Explain the
concept of embedded water (ie the water used in the production of goods). Give
each team the following items, or pictures of these items and ask them to split
them into three groups: high water demand (ie >1.5 tonnes of water), medium
(100 – 1500lt) and low (<100lt). Tell them there are 3 low, 5 medium and 5
high. Give 2 points for each one that is in the right group. Give them the
right answers and then ask them to rank them within each group. Give 5 points if
they get the right order, in each category.
Item Lt
required Ranking
Slice of
toast 55 low
Orange 59 low
Apple 90 low
30g Bag of
crisps 250 medium
Glass of
Milk 350 medium
1Lt lemonade 600 medium
Bottle of
wine 900 medium
0.5 kg
chicken 1300 medium
Margaretta
Pizza 1600
high
Hamburger 3000 high
100g
Chocolate 2500 high
T shirt 3500 high
Microchip 25,000 high
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