British Columbia Social Studies Curriculum Last Updated: 2006 A1: Apply critical thinking skills Compare a range of points of view on an issue or problem Draw conclusions about a problem or issue

Students will conduct research on the process used to treat local tap water. Students will analyze data and perform calculations regarding water use in water treatment processes. Students will investigate the drinking water quality test results for local water and consider the implications of the results. Students will share and compare their results with those of other classes and communities across the country.

The Safe Drinking Water Foundation believes that everyone should understand how their local tap water is treated and delivered and have an idea of the cost of those processes. By ‘cost’ we are not talking about money but about hidden costs to the environment and human health impacts.

The Safe Drinking Water Foundation believes that everyone should understand how their local tap water is treated and delivered and have an idea of the cost of those processes. By ‘cost’ we are not talking about money but about hidden costs to the environment and human health impacts. This project is a guide to researching and analyzing your community’s tap water.

How much raw (fresh) water is brought into the drinking water treatment facility?
How much treated water is put into the distribution system?
These values should be given in units of volume/time.

The information that you gathered through your research can be used to calculate the water footprint of your local drinking water. Throughout this series of calculations we will be talking about the water footprints of both processes and products.

You have calculated the water footprint of your community and its tap water using real information that you found from your research but you may now be wondering how different these footprints might have been if some things in your community or at your treatment facility were different. You can use the calculations process you learned to test different changes and see how they could affect your footprint values.

The water footprint is only one indicator of the impact of your local drinking water treatment and distribution systems. To learn about the ways that you are directly affected you have also researched the actual quality of the water being provided to you.

Contact information for drinking water related authorities and offices in each provincial and territorial government can be found at https://www.ec.gc.ca/eau-water/default.asp?lang=En&n=24C5BD18-1 Alberta, British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, and Saskatchewan also have water quality testing information available online.