Introduction

This World Water Crisis Webquest comes to you as the result of a PBS Teacherline course on learning to create a webquest for students. Currently retired and without a ready audience for this project, I selected a cause dear to my heart – the work of Water Mission, a non-profit seeking to provide clean, safe water in developing countries and areas devasted by natural disasters like hurricanes and tsunamis.

For this reason, the webquest final projects relate to Water Mission. However the basic intent is to help children in 3rd-8^th grade learn about how different other people's experiences are related to WATER. Water is something so often taken for granted in the United States. I firmly believe that children can and will make a difference when they know of needs around the globe.

This webquest can be used in whole or in part, with a class, small group, a few individuals or even as a family project. We begin with these questions -

How much water do you use each day?

Where does that water come from and what do you use it for?

What would you do if the only place to get your water was a dirty, smelly river?

In this webquest you'll take on different roles to explore these questions. Wonder what the scientist and the conservationist will have to say?

Did you know that over 1 billion people in our world don't have safe water?

Did you know 3 children die every minute from diseases that come from dirty water?

Imagine walking 4 miles every day to get water and carrying it home in jugs?

We'll learn about the “world water crisis” from our volunteers – one who works in villages in Africa and another in the USA who works with a group called Water Mission.

This webquest allows the participants to take on the roles of scientist, conservationist, Africa aid worker and Water Mission volunteer and to use Internet resources to explore the “world water crisis.”