Pipestone Flyer
On Thursday, April 25, The H20 4U Tour by Free the Children in partnership with the RBC made a stop at Millet’s Griffiths –Scott Middle School.
Local resident Jenny Major who works at the Wetaskiwin branch of the RBC started off the presentation. Explaining how RBC came to be involved with the H20 4U Tour, Major said, “In 2007, the RBC bank launched the RBC Blue Water Project, a 10 year, 50 million dollar commitment to help protect fresh water and ensure access to clean drinking water in Canada and around the world. The H20 4U Tour is part of this initiative, this tour will have reached more than 20 thousand students by the time it’s completed, and hopefully inspires some of you to become H20 4U ambassadors at your school.” RBC is also a national sponsor of the upcoming Free the Children WE Day that will be held at the Calgary Saddle Dome November 23, 2014.
Alex Atkinson and Andrew Martin of Free the Children made it a lively and entertaining presentation, engaging the students with a combination of fun and facts. The students learned how much water they go through in their daily lives along with the surprising amount of water that is used to produce the goods we use every day, from food to jeans. They were also presented with the scarcity of clean drinking water in other regions of the world, and the impact of industry on water supplies.
It takes 83 to 132 litres of water to produce enough gas to fill a 33 litre tank, a pair of jeans takes 8,200 litres of water to produce and the average hamburger takes 2,500 litres.
Students were introduced to ideas such as meatless Mondays, using refillable containers instead of bottled water and recycling clothing to cut down on water consumption. 70% of the earth’s surface is covered in water, 97% of that water is salt water. Only 3% is fresh water, and of that, 3% most of it is trapped in clouds, glaciers and ground water which leaves less than 0.1% that is available to drink. Not all of that clean water suitable for drinking and must be shared with all living things on earth.
Canadians are some of the biggest water users in the world, using on average 364 litres of water a day, while Europeans use less than half that amount.