Making a splash: Students at Bournemouth School for Girls take part in the Waterwise education programme.
Floods may have dominated the headlines recently but saving water is the theme of a new education initiative at Bournemouth School for Girls (BSG).
Nearly 200 students in Year 8 are taking part in a Key Stage 3 Waterwise education programme developed by Sembcorp Bournemouth Water (SBW).
The company, which provides drinking water to approximately half a million people, has been successfully visiting primary schools since 2010 with a module for Key Stage 1 and 2 pupils.
Now it has introduced a new education programme for older children, aged 12 to 14 years, which continues the saving water theme.
Students are set a task to design a brand new town in Dorset, choosing where to site the development and taking into account issues such as the environment and water sources.
They also design the new houses to be water efficient and take part in ‘hands-on’ experiments involving the filtering of water and seeing how water efficient devices work.
Each session lasts about 90 minutes and at the end the students present their findings in groups to the rest of the class.
The programme is suitable for geography, science or PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic education) lessons. BSG is using it for science.
Fiona Wright, Head of Science, said her students had found the Waterwise programme “interesting and engaging.”
She added: “It gives students the opportunity to use their maths, geography and science skills to consider their water usage, how water is treated and to increase their awareness of the value of water.”
