Water Footprints Deck

This fun flashcard activity reveals all the water that goes into producing the products used every day.... you may be surprised!!

Grade Level: 3 - 8

Time: 10 - 30 minutes

Learning Standards: SS3.C, ETS1.B, MP.6, RF4, SL1

What are we learning?

Learn more about all the water resources that go into everyday items you use! This is known as a "water footprint," a measurement of freshwater used to produce products - from farm, mine, or factory (and every step in between) to you - the user or consumer! This water use adds up in surprising ways and makes a "footprint," a mark or imprint, on Earth's water cycle and ecology.

Keep in mind that as the water is used, it is not used up - like all water, it continues its journey through the water cycle, but the quality is often degraded along the way due to the ways it is used (for example, pollution caused by farming, mining, and factories). Another important interrelated concept to consider is that energy consumption always accompanies water use - pumping, treating, heating & filtering water consumes energy (that has to be produced in some way: burning fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro, solar, wind). Thus, these environmental impacts, or "footprints" go hand in hand (the concept of carbon footprints can be introduced in this lesson as well).

Materials Needed

Link to flippity or print Hands on version
Card Stock
Scissors

What are we doing?

Introduce the lesson to the students explaining that the goal of the lesson is to determine how much water it takes to create everyday products.
Students should be given the opportunity to guess how much water in gallons it takes to produce objects that we use everyday.
As an extension, the students can figure out how much water is used using things we use every day.

What to expect

Allow for students to have discussions about what they are seeing.
Students will gain insight as to how much water it takes for most everyday products to be made.

After introducing these concepts to students and discussing all the ways a water footprint adds up (growing, mining, washing, processing, packaging, manufacturing, cleaning, etc), these flashcard games can be played in a few ways:

~ An online version on "Flippity": Follow the link below and explore the tab options across the top to play online as a flashcard deck, a matching game, a quiz, or even create a printable quiz as a follow-up activity.

Online flashcard deck with words & audio

~ A printable PDF that can be made into a double-sided game, or used single-sided as a matching game.

(Print deck on 32, 3" x 5" index cards)

Printable flashcard deck with images

*Please note that all footprints are calculated as estimates - numerous factors impact these numbers, so there will of course be a real-world range when it comes to quantifying all the water that goes into producing products.