Water Safety: Making and Keeping our Drinking Water Safe

This toolkit is designed to be used by teachers and other educators to teach children about the importance of safe drinking water in Vanuatu and to make connections between water hygiene and water borne diseases. It is designed to strengthen school curriculum themes and create student awareness, as well as effect behavior change. The booklet is aimed at students between grades 5 and 7 and can be used to support topics in basic science and health and hygiene.

The booklet consists of three modules;

• Why do we need clean water?
• Where does our drinking water come from?
• How can we make our drinking water safe?

Each module contains background information for the teacher and one or more activities for the teacher to present to the students. The activities are designed to allow students to learn through practical experiences, including discovering problems, thinking about solutions and taking some actions to solve problems that they discover. The activities contain a purpose and what to do section which helps the teacher present the activity by following simple steps and provides easy to follow directions for running a class discussion to take place after the activity is complete.

The activities within the modules will assist students to:

• gain a deeper understanding of the importance of safe drinking water;
• gain the practical experience and knowledge of doing a water safety audit and water testing;
• develop problem solving skills;
• develop thinking and reasoning skills;
• develop record keeping and analytical skills;
• take responsibility for their own family water hygiene; and
• understand and make connections between water contamination and water management.