Recently, the whole school were treated to a visit from United Utilities who spent the day teaching us all about water. Where it comes from, where it goes, what we can do with it and, once all is said and done, where it ends up when we flush it down the drain!
We first learned about the water cycle – how heat from the sun evaporates water from the oceans, before this is deposited over land as precipitation (rain, snow or anything in between!) This water then makes its way through streams and rivers into reservoirs which store the water. From here, the water is processed and cleaned before being sent through pipes to our homes!
When we have used water (for washing up, having a bath or even going to the toilet!), it ends up in other pipes leading to a waste water treatment center. Here, the water is cleaned before being returned to a river or the sea to continue it’s journey through the cycle!
Not everything can be dealt with by the waste water treatment center though. We also learned how some items don’t break up when they are flushed down the toilet and can cause chaos in our sewers. Fat turns into icky fatbergs and wet-wipes don’t break down at all, blocking things up for everyone. Even the flushable ones – we learned about a test you can do at home to check!
Finally, we all learned about the importance of saving water. We studied many of the simple things we can do to save water and made a water saving promise to try and keep at home! All students have also received a small “shower timer” which ca be used to challenge us all to shower in four minutes or less to save water!
