Water Questions 2

1. (Q) List the main reasons for water scarcity.
(A) Low rainfall, variations in climate, land degradations, population growth and water pollution.

2. (Q) What is a drought? What type of hardships do you think that a drought could cause if you were living in a village in a poor country such as Ethopia?
(A) A drought is when there is little or no rainfall and water scarcity in a large area. Hardships would be problems with washing and quenching thirst.

3. (Q) How does land degradation affect the supply of fresh water?
(A) It stops infiltration and creates run-off, thus transforming more fresh water from rain into salt water in the ocean.

4. a) (Q) What is El Nino?
(A) The strong winds that occur when the wind reverses over the Pacific.
b) (Q) Why does El Ninooften cause drought in Australia?
(A) Wind blows away storm clouds and water vaper in the air from Australia.

5. Observe the map showing the global effects of El Nino in 1982-83.
a) (Q) What effects does El Nino have on the availability of fresh water?
(A) El Nino takes away a lot of water from south east asia and Tasmania.
b) (Q) Name the countries and describe the problems that arose from decreased rainfall caused by El Nino.
(A)Indonesia; more air pollution and forest fires, Philippines; drought, Papua; drought and famine, Australia; drought.

Water Treatment Plant

As part of grade 6's 'water' unit we visited a water treatment plant. There we walked around the plant and learnt how they cleaned the water from the river.

Our first station was the filters. Water flowed into the water plant from the river and flowed through a filter to take out all of the large pieces of junk in it. It then went on to flow through a finer filter which took out all the tiny pieces of junk.

The second station was where special chemicals were mixed with the water to create floc. Floc is a combination of dirt in the water that the special chemicals make coagulate. The floc floats to the water.

Station number three was where all of the water flow into large pools to let the floc settle. Once it has floated to the bottom of the pool the floc is called sediment.

Station four is where chlorine is added. Chlorine kills most diseases and dirt. The disinfected water then flows out through a filter which removes all remaining chlorine and surviving diseases.

Our final station, station five, was a room with a few vials and chemicals where water is tested to see if it was potable, which means able to drink. Here we compared the dirty water with the clean water and saw the difference.

After the tour of the water plant we saw a movie about how to save water. In all it was an educational field trip.

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

*****
by Trenton Lee Stewart

Mr.Benedict, Reynie and the crew are back! For the second mysterious installment Mr. Benedict decides to hold a world-wide treasure hunt as a 1 year anniversary for defeating the evil Mr. Curtain. But Mr. Benedict's evil twin isn't gone forever! In fact, he has just struck again... by kidnapping Mr. Benedict and Number Two! Just when everyone was going to have a happy reunion! What could happen next? Why, a world wide hunt for the missing twosome of course!

New cast members are added into this life-threatening puzzle. Cannonball and Captain Noland help the children race across three adventure-filled countries in the fastest ship ever known to mankind... the Shortcut! McCracken leads an evil force against Mr. Benedict's strong troopers. Then there is Her Majesty the Queen, Kate's new falcon friend. But all of Mr. Curtain's carnivorous comrades are back too! Jackson, Jillson, Martrina, S.Q... all of the master mind's extreme executives are back and as mean as ever! (Except, maybe, S.Q.)

But along with these evil crew-members come the ten-men, business men armed to the teeth. Pencil darts, whip ties, shock watches, calculator bombs, even laser pointers with real lasers!
How can Reynie, Sticky, Kate and Constance work past these thugs? The answer lies in a book of hags and bullfrogs, clues and warnings, pigeons and falcons, deserted villages and dusk-wart, salamanders and sea-planes. Will team Benedict prevail, or will rules, schools, tools and fools be too much for them?

Water Questions

1.(Q) What percentage of the world's supply of water is fresh water?
(A) 2.5%

2.(Q) Where is the world's supply of freshwater found?
(A) In ice, rivers, lakes, the atmosphere and ground water.

3.(Q) Even though the supply of fresh water is abundant it is still a problem. Why?
(A) We do not capture enough rain water.

4. Observe the map of world average annual precipitation (opposite).
a)(Q) Describe the changes in rain fall that occur as you move from the southern to the northern tip of Africa.
(A) The land starts with a low amount of rainfall, then in the centre of Africa there becomes more rainfall and up at the northern tip there is again, little rainfall.
b)(Q) Describe the changes in rainfall that occur as you move from the western to the eastern tip of Australia along the Tropic of Capricorn.
(A) For two thirds of the way rainfall is scarce, but as you reach the eastern side rainfall is more common caused partly by the Great Dividing Range.

5. Observe the map above of water availability per person.
a)(Q) Which parts of the world appear to have a large amount of water available per person?
(A) The northern end of continents seem to have the most water per person.
b)(Q) Which parts of the world appear to have a small amount of water per person?
(A) The northern end of Africa seems to have the lowest water per person rate.

6. Observe the diagram of water use.
a)(Q) What are the main uses of water?
(A) Agricultural and industrial uses are the two main uses of water.
b)(Q) Which uses have increased the most over the last century?
(A) Agriculture and Industrial uses are the two water uses that have increased the most over the last century.

Bintaro Lama

As part of grade 6's water unit, we visited Bintaro Lama Kampung and learnt how they purify their water.

We split into groups and visited 3 stations. My group's first station was 'water quality'. One way of showing how clear water is was to pour water into a thin cylinder with a cross or circle on the bottom. Then you look through the top and see how clearly you can view the cross or circle.

A way of getting rid of dirt in some water is to run it through a 'sand filter'. The sand filter that Bintaro Lama owned was a large barrel with layers of sand and gravel in it. When poured in the top of the barrel the water first had to seep through 45cm of fine sand. Proceeding that was 5cm of fine gravel and then 10cm of large gravel. Once water has seeped through the whole barrel it would come out the other end, with most of the dirt stuck in the sand or gravel.

The last station was a way of killing bacteria in water. The inhabitants of Bintaro Lama cleaned water bottles with soap and then rinsed them. The bottles were then filled with water and left on a roof of a house to be in full view of the sun's rays. All bacteria would burn and die after the water was left on the roof for 6 hours.

Lastly we learnt a hand-washing jingle before heading back to the buses. It was amazing to learn how many ways to clean water a simple kampung like Bintaro Lama has.

Gringotts by J. K. Rowling

In English Class we were told to read a poem and then make a video of it just to improve our video skills on pinnacle 12. So I read Gringotts from J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter.