On Wednesday October 30th students from Ms. Ko’s class experienced a learning field trip related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal # 6 Clean Water and Sanitation.
The choice of the book, A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park, was not accidental for our English class. The literary experiences of water scarcity in certain countries not only enable us to reflect on how lucky we are with easy access to water, but to truly realize how precious water is in our lives. Our students took this field trip to Fairfax Griffith Water Treatment Plant in Lorton to understand the complicated process
behind the daily clean water we enjoy and possibly never question how it comes through. This was our first activity outside the classroom for the Global Classroom Project on the Sustainable Goal #6, Clean Water and Sanitation. Our goal is to connect classroom learning with real life experiences. Our students start to have a new perspective in consuming water. With further research and collaborative actions, we hope we will be able to make a difference in today’s water crisis around the world.
What did you learn from this experience?
I I learned that the process of filtering contaminated water and natural water is very complicated and that it is handled in large quantities. We received a lot of information about where the largest reserves of water are obtained, which cities received them and many other things. We took a tour of the filtration plant there and at the end they told us about a time capsule that they have to store important things and open it in the future.
– Mauricio
What was challenging about this field trip?
The limitation that we have for taking pictures of the inside of the plant and that we really don’t have any access to the filtration plant, just the outside area of the warehouse and the underground floor. – Kim
How did this field trip help you think about access to clean water from different perspectives?
From today’s field trip, I learned a lot of good information about where water comes from. Also, the interesting thing is that we always have to back up the amount of clean water we use. Human actions can harm water sources in bad ways. It is good to know how the water transfers from dirt to clean water. It makes me feel more safe to use water every day after I learn about how water processes. -Kim
It was very limited and we could not get to see the whole process. Overall it was a very good trip and I got to learn how our water is treated to make it clean and safe for everyone to consume. –Kaira
Our tour guide, Ms Miller, gave a very informative presentation on what they do at the treatment plant, and what their mission is. She shared that their mission was to keep water accessible and affordable. We then got to tour the different levels of water treatment. It was nice to see how water gets from the plant to our homes. –Julia
On our field trip to the water treatment plant we had a thirty minute car ride there where I made some friends. When we first arrived at the plant we went into a conference room and learned about the facts. One of the facts is that there are over 29,000 fire hydrants under their control. There is also around 4,000 miles of water mains around Fairfax
While I was in the water facilities we saw the spots where the water goes into the pools that hold all of the drinking water. We got to see the process of the water getting cleaner and cleaner. We also got to see the inside parts where all of the water is held that is fully cleaned which is the water that they send out to our houses for drinking.
When we were done with the tour we got little bags we could fill with some stuff. We got to get some magazines and we got a water bottle and a little squishy water drop toy. We got to talk to Ms Miller, our tour guide, about any questions we had. While we were leaving we took a group photo or two and that was a good time.
On the way home we got to have a bunch of snacks. The snacks we had were skinny pop and a bunch of cookies. We had a very fun trip to the water treatment plant. While we were there we learned a lot about how the water is pushed around the county and cleaned. We all had a lot of fun on this trip and I would love to go on more fun trips like this in the future.-Andrew
I learned different things about the the treatment of water, the lady explains us how the dirty water become into clean water, It is a meticulous and patient process and when the water is clean it is sent back to the homes, usually they have many long pipes, they are in charge of distributing water to two thirds of the population in Virginia.- Santiago
