It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {At Home Learning: You Be The Judge}

Water is an essential part of our everyday life. Water resource managers, city utility personnel, water well professionals, and more go to work every day to make sure we all maintain access to our clean water, even in uncertain circumstances.

Sometimes they are faced with hard decisions: Should water use be restricted? Should a certain amount of water be allocated to certain people or to everyone? In the following activity, you will be provided scenarios and you get to decide who should get the water. You be the judge!

Here's what you need:

• Pitcher filled with water
• Cups for each participant
• Water use cards - you can copy or print the cards found in the activity instructions or make posters representing different water uses
• Scissors 
• Poster board (optional)
• Markers (optional)  

Here's what you do:  
1. Fill a pitcher with water. Make sure there is a limited amount of water so that not all cups can be filled.

2. Give each participant a cup.

3. Pass around the pitcher so each participant can fill their cup. A full cup represents enough water for the participants to meet their water needs.

4. Sometimes there is not enough water available for everyone's needs - in times of drought for example. Ask the participants to express how they feel.

5. Ask what they could do to make sure they all get water.

6. Repeat steps 1-5, this time with water allocations. Choose one or combine both of the following options:

• First in time, first in right. Have the participants arrange themselves in order by their birth date.   
• Use the water use cards found in the activity instructions to determine how the water is distributed. Randomly pass out the cards. Participants can use the information on the cards to discuss and campaign for more water or why others should get more and some should get less.

7. Discuss the results, other ways the water could be allocated, and what the participants learned about water use. 

• Those with more important uses get more. Who decides what's more important?
• Equal shares: everyone gets some, but some will get less than what they need.
• Apply water restrictions and use water conservation practices to reduce the amount needed/used.

Share what you learned with the Groundwater Foundation!

It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {Groundwater Games: Recycle Roundup}

As Groundwater Awareness Week gets closer, Frannie wants to share a fun game you can play that helps you learn about the importance of recycling!  Did you know that recycling helps protect groundwater?  Recycling creates new products from old items, this means less water is used making new products.

Here's what you'll need:

• At least 3 people
• 30 index cards
• Marker
• Three buckets
• Stopwatch
• Whistle
• Large open area

Set-Up Instructions:
1.  Divide your index cards into three piles of 10.  Take the first pile and on one side of each card write the name of an item that can be put in a compost pile.  Mark the second stack with items that can be recycled and mark the third stack with items that can only be put in a landfill, below are some examples:

Recycle -
Aluminum can, notebook paper, paper egg carton, paper grocery bag, telephone book, glass jar, plastic soda bottle, steel soup can, newspaper, plastic milk jug.

Compost -
Apple core, banana peel, coffee grounds, leaves, grass clippings, dead flowers, potato peels, water, worms, pumpkin seeds.

Landfill -
Disposable diaper, used dental floss, used bandage, rubber band, fast food wrappers, cling wrap, wet paper, old sock, paper clip, buttons.

2.  Now label one bucket "Compost," the second "Recycle," and the third "Landfill."

3.  Find a large open area and set the three buckets on one end in a row.  Randomly scatter all the cards, face down, in the area in front of the buckets.

Activity Instructions:
1.  Divide your friends into three teams.
2.  Give one team the title of Compost, the second Recycle, and the third Landfill.  The team should elect one member of their team to stand behind their corresponding bucket.  This person will act as the final judge and can be the only person to drop the cards into the labeled bucket.
3.  At the sound of the whistle, you will have five minutes to go through the cards.  Each person may pick up one card at a time and read the back.  If they think the item corresponds to their team, they hand the card to the judge behind the bucket.  The judge decides if the item is correct and puts it in the bucket.  If the item is incorrect, the judge hands it back to the person who gave the card to them and they return the card to the table or floor, face down.

4.  At the end of the time period, the team that has the most correct items in their bucket is declared the winner.

Share pictures of you and your friends playing Recycle Roundup here.

It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {Water Drop Scavenger Hunt}

If you were a tiny raindrop on top of the roof of the Groundwater Foundation, how would you get to the ground?

It may not be obvious, but the answer is right in front of you.  Do you see that pipe on the left side of the picture?  The pipe allows water to drain off the roof of the building onto the ground below.

When we draw the water cycle, we often forget to include the rain that gets stuck on rooftops or in parking lots. But a tiny droplet will travel to many unexpected places.  Look at the picture below and see if you can find one way that a water drop can travel from the sky to the ground and back again.

• Precipitation falls from the sky and can either get caught up in trees or rooftops or it might make it all the way to the ground.
• From the roof or trees, a drop of water can evaporate or flow down into the drainage pipes and run off into a collection point.
• Trees also are able to perform transpiration, which means that they can release water into the air through their leaves.
• A lawn might have a sprinkler system to keep it green and fresh.
• Any extra water that reaches the ground from precipitation or irrigation can either evaporate, run off into a collection point like a drainage system or body of water, or seep into the ground to restore soil moisture and recharge groundwater levels.

Now it’s your turn to try this at home! Take a picture somewhere in your community and try to find all the places where a water droplet could travel.  Bonus activity: on a rainy day, try following a water drop or two, or two hundred!  Good luck!