EFS 11 - Fwushan Junior High

Question:

There are more than 3000 people at our school. We use lots of water every day. We don’t defiantly know where the water went. But we try to get more and more information to understand how we reused the water. 

 

Our Questions are

1. how you save your water or reuse the water at your school?
1. Do you have any special sign(s) to remind people to use as less water as they can?
2. What do the signs look like?

 

We have these stuffs in our country:

*We call it " water-storage tank"

 

 

 

*There is a ecology pond behind this special kind of sink to save water for us to reuse.

 

 

 

 

 

*We put this sign on things that we can reuse the water.

 

---

Answer from EFS1

 

We save water in a lot of ways. Our eco team gives out announcements telling us how to conserve water. For example we give announcements like “Don’t leave your tap on while you are brushing your teeth”. We only use water for water fountains, and the taps are automatic so you can’t just leave it on unless your hands are on the sensors. Our toilets are a different style of toilets that use less water. Ours is 6 litres, less than the average 16.25 litres. We use our machines efficiently. For example our electric sweeper uses less water. Our eco team gives announcements every morning to inform people to save energy and water. This is how we save water.

---

Answer from EFS2

 

At Redstone Public School, to save water we use motion detecting sinks. Using motion detecting sinks helps because they will shut off, automatically after a short amount of time. (3 seconds once hand is moved) Therefore, no unnecessary water will be wasted. (Refer to picture below.)

Another way we save and reuse water at Redstone Public School is that we use self activated water fountains. Our water fountains are self activated. This means you push the button and water is there for you to drink. Once you let go of the button the water turns off.
(Refer to picture below.)

 All of the toilets in our school are low volume flush. The lower the volume the lesser amount of water is used per flush, resulting in more water saved. For our toilets they require 6 litres to flush. An average toilet flush uses 13-20 litres. At our school our student toilets also use 6 litres per flush, and are also low volume. We have 3 girl bathrooms and 3 boy’s washrooms. We also have a few teachers and kindergarten bathrooms.

This is how we save and reuse water at Redstone Public School.

In our town, Richmond Hill, we use 56 221 784L of water per day.
In one month, Richmond Hill uses 1 710 079 250L.
In one year we use 20 520 961 000L in our town of Richmond Hill.

At our school we do not have any special signs to remind people to use less water. The students at our school know that we need to use less water, however signs are a good idea and a possible project for next year. Together we will save water.

---

Answer from EFS3

Water is very important in people’s life and we can’t live without it. However, as population grows, water needs increase, and fresh water sources became taxed to the limit. So we should do something to resolve this dangerous problem.

First, the best solution is to awareness people about using as less water as they can: turn off the tap when not in use, regularly check taps and pipes for leaks and repair any leaks detected, never pour water away when there may be another use for it, washing machine rinse water, especially the last few batches of rinse water can be used for the toilet flashing, and floor cleaning , reuse water from washing of fruits and vegetables, and dish/cup washing final rinse water to water plants, take shorter showers and turn off the shower while lathering and washing their hair, use a tumbler of water to rinse their mouths instead of leaving the tap running while they brush their teeth…

Second, we can recommend them to reuse the water, because reusing water can satisfy must water demands. By reusing water, we create supply to overcome pending shortages due to: population growth, increase municipal, industrial, agricultural demand, nationwide drought, and we conserve portable water supplies…

Third, we can do awareness campaigns in schools: for example, at our school we try our best to be careful while using water for drinking, washing hands, or doing several activities, because to save water is about to save our life!

 

---

Answer from EFS4

 

Water has many uses in schools which include drinking, flushing the toilet, washing paintbrushes, washing hands and watering the school garden.
Water is an essential resource for everyone and should be used sparingly and not wasted. There are many ways for schools and students to learn more about water and how it should be used in schools, how to protect it and save it. Conserving and protecting water in schools can save schools thousands of dollars.

It's never too early to teach students about the importance of water conservation, and one of the best ways to teach through actions is to implement water saving practices in school. You can make a big difference in your school's water usage simply by performing a few rules regarding how water is used on a daily basis by students and school staff. Here are some ways that can save water in school:

- Bring a water bottle to school to avoid using a drinking fountain that can use more water than a person drinks.

- Find out if your school uses low-flow or water-reducing devices on faucets and toilets. If your school doesn't use these devices, talk to the person in charge and explain why it's important to use these devices to save water.

- Find out if the plants around your school need to be watered a lot. If they do, find out about alternative plants that can survive with less water. Talk to your school's parent/teacher organization about helping to replace the plants. 

- Put mulch (protective covering to reduce evaporation) around plants to conserve water. 

- When washing hands, don’t let the water run while soaping up your hands.
- If you see water coming from unused water faucets, shut them off.

- Alert the custodian/building engineer of any leaky faucets, drinking fountains or toilets.

- Using faucets improperly is another way that schools commonly waste water through. Give your students lessons on how to use faucets properly, reminding them not to leave the water running while soaping up their hands and to always turn off the faucet entirely when finished. If your faucet is dripping at the rate of one drop per second, you can expect to waste 2,700 gallons per year. Make colorful posters that feature a list of reminders for faucet use and post it in all of the school bathrooms to help students remember the importance of proper faucet use.

- Harvesting rainwater is a fun water conservation activity for students of all ages. Rather than using water from the taps to water class plants or a school garden, collect rainwater for the same purpose. Give students rainwater collection containers, and set them outside. After rain falls, students collecting their containers bring them to the school garden for watering, or inside to water class plants.

 

Hopefully, these are good steps that can be followed to save water in schools and guide the students for a future that doesn’t put our earth in risks of water draining.

 

---

Answer from EFS5

 

Question 11

 

1. How you save your water or reuse the water at your school?

We were thinking about ways to save or reuse water at our school. However, we don’t reuse water or save it at our school. However, we do have some ideas to save water in the future. For example, we are working on a plan to reuse rainwater and use that for flushing the toilets. In most of the households and schools the toilets flush on normal water. This is a big waste of drinkable water and I think this has to change. It is an idea to flush the toilet on rainwater. Rainwater is not drinkable, is unlimited and the slight presence of drinkable water is one of the main problems on this planet. If all the households and schools in the western World would use rainwater for their toilets instead of normal water, we could use the saved drinkable water for the people who really need it, such as the African people in the desert.

Secondly, we can use one button for one shower and not one button for three showers because we can save water by using this sytem so people won’t waste more water than they need

 

-         Do you have any special sign(s) to remind people to use as less water as they can?

At school, we don’t have any signs to help reuse water. However, some people do have a special system at home, with 2 buttons on it. The smaller button uses less water than the bigger one, so can especially be used for urinating. When someone has to squeeze the limit, they can use the bigger button, which uses more water.

 

-         What do the signs look like?

It looks like this: 

---

Answer from EFS7

1. At our school, we don’t really save or reuse water. However, I found some ideas we could use at our school, for example, we could flush the toilets with rainwater instead of fresh water. We could also install taps that use less water than normal taps, every time you use them.

We also have to use less chemical cleaning products and less paint during drawing lessons, so we pollute less water than we do now.

If you have any other ideas for us to make our school more ecofriendly and save water, we would like to hear.

 

i. No, but it might be a good idea to consider. Most students and teachers in our school don’t really think about saving or reusing water, we have to create more awareness for this topic.

 

---

Answer from EFS8

Research from Libanon Lyceum

 

 

At our school, we don’t reuse water, save water, or remind people that we shouldn’t be wasting it. But we’ve done some research about the water-use at our school.

 

Water saving

 

Unfortunately, there is no water saving at our school. All the water from toilets, the kitchen, showers, and so on, is draining through the sewer. There’s been a research about changing filtered water into unfiltered water, to flush the toilet. But we’ll lose more money then it will bring. Another reason is that the water in Holland is just too cheap. It’s so cheap, that nobody wants to put money into a fair system, because that is far too expensive. But it is a good idea for new buildings.  They haven’t got a system yet, and the two systems cost the same. But to change the old system into a new one is very expensive. There is another problem, when changing the system, the chance that the sewage will get blocked is very big.

 

Water-use in Holland

 

In our country we have a lot of water. We get out of the soil, rain, and water treatment plants. We have so much that people do not think, we really use too much water. It's all drinking water. We flush the toilet with drinking water, showering us with drinking water, we brush our teeth with drinking water. We consume about 128 liters of water per day. We never think about it what it would be if the water runs out. But it may run out. Here at school, there are no signs that indicate that people should not waste water. We have  therefore made ​​a small prototype of what such a sign should look like:

 

Showers and taps

 

In our school building, which is very old, we nevertheless save water in two manners, namely with the taps and the showers.

All the taps in our school have a push button on the top. When you want to use water to wash your hands, you push the button once and the tap goes on. After a short period, it stops automatically. If you need more water, you have to push the button again. You can’t turn the tap off yourself. In this way students don’t waste water as a result of leaving the tap running or using more water than necessary. There are a few faucets with normal handles. They are in the lab, where we have chemistry and natural sciences. At this location, it is important (also for safety reasons) that the water stays on when the tap is turned on.

Our showers nearby the fitness room have water saving sprinkler heads, so we use less water by taking a shower after gym. And you don’t notice that at all when you are under it!

Again, the only shower in our school which hasn’t got water saving is the emergency shower in our lab. That is a shower you can use when you are on fire or you spilled some poison over your body. When you pull the cord of the shower, it pours as many water as possible all over you!

 

 

 

Because of your question, we think more how we should save water. Thanks for that!                                                       

Greetings from Enya, Lottie, and Laura

Libanon lyceum, the Netherlands

 

XXX

---

Answer from EFS9

 

How you save your water or reuse the water at your school?

In our school, we use several devices for saving water. For instance, we have three kinds of faucets that save more water than the usual one. First, we have a kind of tap that shut automatically a few minutes after you press the button.

We also adopt the most common automatic tap. The water only comes out when the sensor on the faucet detects hands under the tap.

The adoption of the two faucets mentioned above is to prevent students from forgetting to turn them off, wasting a lot more water than we actually need.

We also have a special device that is put in the outletof the tap to help reduce the amount of water because the design makes the aperture smaller than usual. As you can see, the water flow is like a spray.

In addition to faucets, we also make some changes in the toilet flush device.

The red handle is for number one and the handle below it is for number two. This kind of 2-stage flush device can save a large amount of water every year.

Do you have any special sign(s) to remind people to use as less water as they can?

What do the signs look like?

W e have a special sign which is composed of a green heart and a blue water drop, reminding people that we should bear the importance of water saving in mind and try our best to make our environment greener.

  

---

Answer from EFS10

 

School level:

(1) The most common event is：when a faucet is broken and water keeps dripping, we put a bucket under it for saving the clean water, and then use the water for plants and cleaning.  Of course, the leaking will be fixed as soon as possible. 

 

 

 

(2)  We can collect the rain water in the rain seasons, and make good uses of it.

                                     First, build a rainwater-saving system, such as a pond, pipes or just a few buckets.

                                     Second, the saved rainwater is  processed in a simple way so that some stuff like sand and leaves can be got rid of.                                 

                                     Finally, the rainwater can be used in a variety of ways.

                                     a. Toilets flushing. 

                                     b. Environment cleaning. 

                                     c.  Watering for the flowers, trees, lawns and gardens.

 

                               P.s. The uses of rainwater can save us not only the precious amount of water but also a considerable amount of money.

 

 

 

National Kaohsiung Institute of Marine Technology

source: http://green.crnet.com.tw/91_96/html/page4.html

 

(3) Take our school for example. There are two tennis courts in our school.

Every time when we have to use them, we have to sprinkle a large amount of water on them first because the ground are made ofred sand.

If we don’t do the action first, the air may become really bad and our shoes will be stained. 

Therefore, we can suggest that school might use the used water or the rain water so that pure water can be saved.

                              

 

 

Water is spread before the court is used. 

 

 

Individual level：

(1)People should always check out the water pipes in their house. If there is any leak, be sure to fix it, or the cost of wasted water may be stunning.

                                   Besides, there is a water meter for each household.  The family can check how much water they use at any time and try to reduce the                                                    consumption of water.

 

 

 

Water meter

 

((2)  People is quite a hot place so people, especially teenagers, like to drink beverage from the vendors.  However, when the disposable containers are recycled, a large amount of water is needed to clean the cups.   Therefore, we had better cut down on the consumption of beverage.  Or we can take our own water bottle so we can reduce the requirement for the water and preserve water supplies. 

 

 

      

 

2. Share with us a creative way that we could use to prevent spoiling fresh water in our school. 

                  (1) Clean the standpipes, and be aware of the cleanliness of pipes. 

 

                       

                       source: http://www.plumber.idv.tw/

 

                    (2) Recently,more and more “green” activities are held up to protect our earth.  

                        “Earth day” will be a more interesting one. Students in their schools can take part in such project.

                         They can launch it on a certain day every year. 

                         

                         

source: http://www.hfec.org.tw/memespace/exhibits_1.asp?CTID={EBF55E7F-ED75-4439-A0B7-A3F915AA5B0E}

 

                               What You Can Do On Earth Day

                                        source: http://instantsavingsolutions.com/education/save-water-day/

                                       

                                       A sign reminding us to save water anytime, anywhere.

 

---

Answer from EFS12

 

Our school is smaller than yours, but we have about 3000 students. In a campus with so many people, we use a lot of water every day, too. To remind people to use as less water as they can, water conservation logos can be seen on each wash basin.

 

 

 

In the middle of the sign is a smiling water drop. The arrow holding the water drop means the importance to recycle and reuse water. The blue color is like clean water. The logo reminds us if we cherish water resources, we will have clean water forever.

 

In the school toilets, you can also see signs to teach people how to use the water saving toilets. All the toilets in our school are dual-flush toilets. They can let people use less water but still keep toilets clean.

 

 

---