Deer Park Students Issue Water Challenge

Fifth grade students at are challenging kids at the school to give up drinking anything but water.

The challenge, issued to students on Thursday, Nov. 3, is this: Don't drink soda, milk, sports drinks or juice for a week. Instead, save the money that could have been spent on those beverages and drink only water.

On November 10, the school intends to collect the total money saved by students with the hope of funding a well in another country.

Cheryl Gendebien, Alondra Woodall and Susan Foster have been teaching their fifth grade students this school year about problems with water quality and access in other countries.  

"Without access to water, education is almost impossible," Gendebien wrote in an e-mail. "Dirty water leads to a cycle of disease, missed school days, and high drop-out rates - especially for girls."

Their 56 students contributed to an eight-minute public service announcement issuing the challenge. The goal was to see if kids go without water for a week.

The three classes used a curriculum created by Water.org, a nonprofit that raises awareness of water problems in developing countries and raises money to address them.

The students created a showcase in the school media center exhibiting the PSA and their projects. Students from younger classes, including k-5^th grade, visited the museum on Thursday and Friday to hear the challenge and see the work.

“They’re teaching what they’ve learned,” Gendebien said of the fifth graders in an interview.

The fifth graders created water-themed superheroes and made water-themed collages with their families. They wrote poems. They teamed up for presentations on the water problems present in developing countries like India, Bangladesh, Honduras and Ethiopia. They experimented with water quality testing.

Andrew Baldetti, who is in Gendebien’s class, and other students made a digital slideshow about India’s water crisis.

“I think America should help India out as much as possible so they get fresh water,” he said.  

Deer Park students have been issued personalized plastic bags with which to collect the money that could have been spent on beverages. The bags contain instructions on how to follow the challenge and a chart outlining the cost per servings of milk, juice, soda and sports drinks. Students will be going on the morning news to remind kids of the challenge.

The teachers will donate the total collected money to Water.org for construction of a well.

Deer Park started completing the water problem curriculum as part of a global project with a school in Italy. Deer Park began its semester before the Italy school, so it started the curriculum first. 

The principal of the Italy school, who they’d been in contact with since the previous school year, forwarded them to another contact who has not responded to them.  They will continue reaching out to the Italy school, Gendebien said.

Watch the fifth graders' PSA, then check out animated shows of their presentations.

Here's a link to a presentation of the family water projects made by students in Woodall's class.

http://animoto.com/play/hJ10T7e7dvawGsZKqGuJ6w?utm_content=main_link

Video by Michael Charnisky. Photos by Madison McDaniel, Brianna Keena, & Sarah Bobowski.

Country facts from Water.org:

• Bangladesh

• Honduras 

• Ethiopia

Citizens living below poverty line (2006 estimate)

• India

Infant Mortality

        5 percent (2011 estimate)

Citizens below the poverty line

25 percent (2007 estimate)

Article updated 7:12 p.m. Nov. 7.