Taking part in the Great Water Challenge has been a great experience for our class. We have learned so much about our watershed and local waterways while gaining a better understanding of the water issues in other areas of Canada and the world.
From first-hand experiences on field trips to webinars to videos about Canadian indigenous communities, we have looked at water from many angles, We investigated the health of our local Cooksville Creek by conducting a stream study with the help of EcoSpark, We explored our watershed on the Peel Water Story bus tour which took us to a local dairy farm to see how they approached water conservation and met the Peel Region "spill team" to learn how they monitor residential and industrial waste water. We also took part in the Great Canadian Shoreline Clean-up.
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| Cooksville Creek Stream Study |
Our investigation of our school's waste management habits got us sorting garbage in a school-wide waste audit. The data showed us that students and staff are still using a lot of disposable water bottles so we decided to learn more about the environmental and health impacts of plastic bottles. A few students attended EcoBuzz, our region's youth environmental conference and went to workshops to learn about how healthy our tap water is in Peel and how fortunate we are to have such a wonderful, clean and water supply.
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| School-wide Waste Audit |
Through the Great Water Challenge, we have become more connected to our water and discovered how fortunate we are here in Mississauga to live on Lake Ontario, to have access to clean, healthy water. We have gained a better understanding of how important it is to learn about the heritage and history of our waterway and how it has changed over time. We realize how vitally important it is to be stewards of our watershed, our lakes, our streams - our home. We have hope for the future but know that we need to actively be part of the solution.
Here are the submissions from the five teams.
Wavy Ladies
CLICK HERE to view their video submission
CLICK HERE to view Khysandra's video submission
Aqua Girls
CLICK HERE to view their video submission
MKABB
Morgan and Friends
If humanity continues to use and improperly dispose plastic water bottles, it is said that by 2050 there will be 1 bottle in the ocean for every fish. Plastic bottles are a huge environmental issue as they not only continue to pollute our waterways but cannot dissolve and pollute areas of land as well. This fact makes you think of what conditions we want our kids to live in in the future, and it is our responsibility to create a more sustainable planet now. Instead of using bottled water, the number one solution would be to use tap. This would allow cleaner waterways as less plastic would be floating in the ocean, and our own health would benefit too as tap has less bacteria than bottled water.
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| Illustration by Johiz |
Finding Lakeshore
This team decided to create images to communicate how they see the future of water and our relationship with bottled and tap water.
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| Ilustration by Dax |
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| Ilustration by Devin |
My art piece symbolizes the future possibility of improving the way water is distributed around the world, and how the oil distribution is running short, and will soon cease to exist making it a large burden for oil pipelines to be built that bring negative affects to native communities. Whereas water pipelines would create a foundation for ending world poverty and improving foreign affairs.
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| Illustration by Jackson |
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| Illustration by Matthew |
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| Illustration by Jonathan |
