Sarah Wolf is an ISDA Resource Specialist, serving Jasper,
Benton, Newton, and Lake Counties.
The Pathway to Water Quality
committee asked me to serve as a Live Interpreter, teaching water history and
conservation, during the state fair to celebrate Pathway’s 20th
anniversary. Visitors enjoyed learning
how to wash clothes the old fashioned way, and all the while I was teaching
them how water was used 100 years ago.
The point I wanted to get across to them was that water was often used
for multiple tasks in the past, and we tend to waste a lot of water now because
using water is convenient. In the past,
because water had to be carried in buckets from the well, water was
conserved. Pioneers would wash clothes
with about five gallons, and then use that water to mop the floor or water
their garden.
Now we wash one load of
clothes in the washing machine with about 60 gallons, and that water is not
used for any other chore before sending it on to the sewage treatment plant or
septic system. The average household of
three people uses an estimated 200 gallons of water every day!
Visitors brainstormed ideas of how to use
less water, and hopefully they will consider changing just
one water practice in their everyday lives.
Water is a precious resource that needs to be conserved and protected,
and together we can make a difference if we are mindful of how we use water!
Educators can find a water history
lesson plan that I complied for 5th grade students (adaptable for
younger students) at http://www.iaswcd.org/district_tools/pwq/pdfs/WHC.pdf.
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