Last week, my students and I participated in the "Water Testing Project" organized by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) of Peace Corps Ukraine. EWG was awarded a grant by the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers association of Northern California (RPCV NorCal) to conduct water testing in every oblast of Ukraine. I conducted a lesson for 5th graders about water pollution in Russian, with the help of one of our English teachers Liliya Nikolaievna.
Most people in Ukraine either drink water drawn from a well or straight from the tap. Some people (who can afford it) buy bottled water from trucks that drive around selling distilled water, and very few Ukrainians have water filters such as Brita pitchers. Peace Corps Volunteers in Ukraine are told not to drink water straight from the tap -- each town has its own legends of people losing teeth or developing health issues because of the local water. Liliya and I taught about the different sources of water pollution and the dangers of water pollution to the environment and to people.
Next, we watched a short video showing a news report on water pollution in Ukraine. Since these are only 5th graders, we read the translated transcript of the video in Ukrainian first. Then we looked at a table of different chemicals that can be found in tap water, and discussed the different sources of these chemicals and their effects on the body.
After that, the students worked in 4 groups to count and sort out different "chemicals" that were found in their "water" (a Ziploc bag filled with small squares of paper with different colored dots drawn on them). They graphed their results on a worksheet and then presented them to the class.
The last part of the project was everyone's favorite - the part where we actually tested the water! We used small plastic cups, filled with tap water from the school bathrooms. We did the water tests together, so that I could make sure that each testing strip was kept in the water for the right amount of time. We recorded the results of the tests and then sent them back to EWG to be included in the water testing map of Ukraine!
For more information about this water testing project, you can go to the EWG website - you can find all the lesson plans and check out the interactive map of the water test results from every oblast! My project hasn't been added to the map yet (for Kharkiv oblast), so here are our results:
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| with the 5B class that participated in this project. |
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| Water is important for bathing! |
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| These kids were super excited for their 1st lesson taught with a projector. |
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| Liliya discussing the translation of the video with the students. |
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| Reading the chemical chart - some of them didn't know what chemicals like sulfate, nitrate, etc were because they don't have Chemistry class yet. |
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| Explaining what each different dot means. |
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| Counting and sorting the little pieces of paper. |
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| Tanya dipping the test strip into the cup. |
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| One of the boys testing the copper level of the water. |
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| The test strip turned orange! |
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Test for:
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Actual Values
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Dangerous Values
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Bacteria (E. Coli)
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>0
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Chloride
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500
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> 250 mg/L
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F. Chlorine
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0.25
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>4.0 ppm
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Copper
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0.5
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>1.3 ppm
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Iron
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0
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>0.3 ppm
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Mercury
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0.002
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>2.0 ppb
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Sulfate
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0
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>250 ppm
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Nitrate
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0
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>10 ppm
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Nitrite
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0
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>1.0 ppm
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pH
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7.5
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<6 .5=".5" or="or">8.5
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Alkalinity
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350
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No general standards, although
20-200mg is typical for freshwater
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Hardness
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425
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Values:
Soft (0-120)
Hard (121-425)
Very Hard (>425)
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