WATER CONSERVATION COIN BOX
Suggested Grades: 2, 5/6
Driving Questions
Grade 2
- Why is water important?
- How do we use water?
- How do animals and people use water?
Grade 5/6
- Where does our drinking water come from?
- Who manages it?
- What are considerations in local water management?
Materials
- Coin box outline
- Coin replicas (if using)
- Love your Raindrop Video
Learning Intentions
- I can start to become aware how many times or how much water my family/class uses
- I can count/add money the appropriate way for my grade level
- I can share/teach this idea with others
Curricular Competencies
Science:
- Questioning and predicting
- Planning and conducting
- Processing and analyzing data and information
- Evaluating
- Applying and innovating
- Communicating
Math:
- Communicating and representing
- Reasoning and analyzing
Social Studies:
- Demonstrating personal and social responsibility
Lesson
This activity is to be introduced to Grade 2s and/or Grade 6s who then take it to the other grades. If there are Grade 5/6s in your school they can run it with the Grade 2s.
- Show video. Discuss water use with students – the CVRD has handouts that could be used at http://www.comoxvalleyrd.ca/water.
- Have students make and decorate coin boxes and coins using the coin box outline and coin replica sheets.
- Have students predict how many times their household will use water.
- The students can go into other classrooms to talk about water conservation, show their coin boxes and encourage that class to make coin boxes.
- All students who have made coin boxes take them home. Every time someone uses water in their household they put a coin in the coin box. They can use real coins or the replicas that were made. Water use includes washing hands, dishes, showering, flushing the toilet.
- After a predetermined time (e.g. one week) the coin boxes are returned to school.
- The money collected can be counted, graphed and summed in a way that is appropriate for the students’ grade. Students can compare water use between individuals/classrooms.
- Students brainstorm ideas for conserving water.
- If real money was collected, it can be donated for conservation to help subsidize a planting or other stewardship activity that the students will be involved in. It also can be used as the budget for the lesson, Restoration Planting Planning.
Click here to download a printable version of this lesson
Community Connection
Donate the funds to a non-profit such as Project Watershed and set up a stewardship activity such as restoration planting, garbage pick up or invasive species removal.