Designing Ways to Get and Clean Water
How do we get clean water?Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399 USA. All rights reserved.
In this scenario-based activity, students design ways to either clean a water source or find a new water source, depending on given hypothetical family scenarios. They act as engineers to draw and write about what they could do to provide water to a community facing a water crisis. They also learn the basic steps of the engineering design process.
Water sources are increasingly becoming polluted by human-made and natural contaminants. In addition, water sources are beginning to retain less and less water for people's' daily needs. Engineers have long recognized this as a growing problem, and they are being called upon to design better ways to manage our water resources and develop advanced technologies to clean our water and to preserve and protect our water sources. Finding solutions to meet a community's water needs requires that engineers take into consideration the region's climate as well as the available natural and human resources.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- List several real scenarios that involve threats to community water resources.
- Explain the importance and challenges involved in cleaning water for human use.
- Describe how engineers are involved with finding and cleaning water.