Sample Teacher Instructions:
“We’re going to be talking this week about how important it is to have clean water. We know
that when God created the earth, God filled the oceans and rivers and lakes and ponds with
sparkling clean water. (pour clean water into large glass pitcher) God wanted the fish and whales
and dolphins to have a beautiful place to live (drop in a plastic toy fish, sea plant, etc.) and God
wanted the people and animals to have cool clean water to drink.
For years and years, the water on the earth stayed sparkling and clean, just the way God created it.
Then, as more and more people came to live on the earth, they built houses, stores, and factories.
The water started to look dirty like this (hold up container of dirty, cloudy water) from the
pollution and the changes people were making in the world. Do you think the fish wanted to live
in this kind of dirty water? Do you think the people wanted to drink this kind of water? Would
you want to take a bath in this kind of water?
At your house, when you turn on the sink or the bathtub, you have clean sparkling water for
drinking and bathing, but in many places in the world, children like you have water that looks
like this: (hold up dirty water again...pass around a small sealed jar of the dirty water) This is the
only kind of water they have to drink, or cook with, or brush their teeth with.... What do you
think this kind of water tastes like? Smells like? Feels like?
Wouldn’t it be good if we could pour this kind of awful, dirty water into a machine that would
turn it back into clean, sparkling water again? (here ask one of the students to pour some of the
dirty water through the coffee filter in a sieve – it will still be cloudy, dirty) It’s not easy to clean
dirty water! But what if there were a machine that could fix the water, and make it good or ‘pure’
again, so the people never had to use this dirty water? What kind of parts would a machine like
that need? Maybe the people with dirty water could get lots of buckets and pour their dirty water
in one side of the machine, like this (scooping motion) and then it might go through some tubes
or pipes of filters to purify it, and then it would come out clean and safe to drink on the other side.
(take more suggestions on how the machine might work....how big would it be, etc.)
Wow, those are all great ideas! I think they might work! Just imagine how good it would be if
we could make clean water for everyone who needs it! Could you use some of these crayons (or
markers) and this paper to draw a picture of how we might build one of these water purification
machines? Start with a place for the dirty water to go in and be sure you have a place for the
clean water to come out. What happens to the dirty water as it goes through your machine? How
big is your machine going to be? Maybe you could put a person in your drawing so we can see
how to use your machine.... How does your machine work? Does it have any buttons or faucets?
(and so on). Let children describe their drawing to one another, if there is time. Display them on
the wall. If time permits, and if you have a
Living Waters for the World
system in your building,
take the children to see it at this time.”
Rev. 1/06