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World Water Day

teenager drinking water

Everyone needs water, and every drop is precious. On 22 March, World Water Day draws attention to the essential role of water in our lives, the difficulties many people have getting clean water, and solutions to these problems. 

Instructions

Do the preparation task first. Then read the article and do the exercises to check your understanding.

Preparation

Why do we need water?

The human body is around 60 per cent water, and we need to drink lots of water to be healthy. As well as needing clean water to drink, we need it for cooking, washing and brushing our teeth. Hygienic toilets require water – a lot of water. Each time we flush, we can use up to six litres! We use water indirectly too. Farmers, who produce the food we eat, use water to make the plants grow. A lot of water is used to produce the clothes we wear. Did you know that it takes about 2,700 litres of water to make one T-shirt?

Does everyone have enough water?

We all need water to stay alive, but more than two billion people around the world live without safe water in their homes. That's around a quarter of the world's population! Many of them live in rural communities or in places where there is war and conflict. In addition to this, climate change is making the little water they have access to more and more scarce.

What are the consequences?

If we drink dirty water or we can't wash our hands when we go to the toilet, we can catch diseases from bacteria and become ill. More than two thousand children worldwide die every day from diarrhoea caused by dirty water. In some countries, people – mainly women and children – walk many kilometres every day to get water, and sometimes the water isn't even clean! If children spend most of their day walking to get water, they can't go to school, so they don't learn how to read or write and don't get an education.

What happens on World Water Day?

In 1992, the United Nations decided to make a special day for water, and World Water Day has been celebrated on 22 March every year since 1993. On this day, many countries hold events to educate people about the problems of dirty water and to try to find solutions to provide everyone around the world with clean water.

What can we do?

A lot of charities organise fundraising events for World Water Day. People do things like sponsored walks, cycles and swims. Some groups organise events like 'Walk for water', where people walk four, eight or 12 kilometres each day in March, to see how it feels when you have to walk a long way to get your drinking water. Others do a 'Water challenge' and drink only water for a whole month. People give them money to do these things, and all this money helps buy taps and toilets and provide clean water to as many people as possible around the world. So, this World Water Day, what will you do?

Worksheets and downloads

Worksheet106 KB
Discussion

What do you think are the most important things we use water for? What can we do to save water?

Language level
A2 Pre-intermediate
B1 Intermediate
Topics
development
geography
Average: 4.2 (9 votes)
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Comments

Profile picture for user Freshka

Submitted by Freshka on Thu, 07/28/2022 - 12:33

The most important thing we use water for is drinking. Without drinking, we aren't able to live more than 3-4 days. The part of the text that surprised me the most was that 1 in 3 people in the world doesn't have clean toilets.

Submitted by UtkuKublay35 on Wed, 06/01/2022 - 08:03

Water is life, we must use water regularly and sparingly. If there is no water, there is no life.

Submitted by Didik on Fri, 06/11/2021 - 14:40

I think the most important thing we use water for is drinking. Without drinking water we die. To save water, we must spend less time in shower and we need to stop using so much water in excess.

Submitted by Arivelde on Fri, 05/14/2021 - 15:04

The most inportant thing we use water for is "drinking", without it we die, water is life, and it's hard to imagine some people's suffering just to get it. This article just brings truths, and sometimes it's hard to think about these things. While we are here, in the confort of our houses, doing some "British Council" to improve something we know, our english, there are kids, sometimes younger (sometimes older people than our grandparents too) than us walking kilometers and kilometers just to get some dirty water that eventualy can get you killed, fighting for their lives instead of learning, going to school, playing... Things that are the base of childhood. What we need to save the water is a collective awareness about how not to spend more water than we need, and finding a way to help those in need.
Profile picture for user Andrii

Submitted by Andrii on Fri, 10/09/2020 - 19:16

I think the most important thing we use water for is drinking because if you don't drink water, you will live only three days. And the most surprising thing for me is that the most of the water we use is to flush the toilet. My advise about saving water is that you should turn of the water while brushing your teeth and spend less time for taking shower.

Submitted by Servus on Thu, 04/16/2020 - 21:13

Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface, mostly in seas and oceans.Small portions of water occur as groundwater (1.7%), in the glaciers and the ice capsof Antarctica and Greenland (1.7%).Much of the long-distance trade of commodities (such as oil, natural gas, and manufactured products) is transported by boatsthrough seas, rivers, lakes, and canals.Large quantities of water, ice, and steam are used for cooling and heating, in industry and homes. Water is an excellent solvent for a wide variety of substances both mineral and organic; as such it is widely used in industrial processes, and in cooking and washing. Water, ice and snow are also central to many sportsand other forms of entertainment, such as swimming, pleasure boating, boat racing, surfing, sport fishing, diving, ice skating and skiing.

Submitted by Prnczlz on Thu, 04/16/2020 - 18:16

I guess the water is important to all people. We should drink and wash our body etc. Lot of people can’t do anything because they haven’t got water therefore they die. Without water people and animals would die. I think it's a good idea to they do programs for kids to understand how to produce finished water, for example. Lot of people don’t know this and just they get a finish water.

Submitted by Tixi on Thu, 04/16/2020 - 15:32

An average person uses about 150 liters of water every day for using the bathroom, drinking and cooking. Another important aspect of water usage is watering crops. Plants also need a lot of water to grow and produce the food we need. A lot of people think that everyone has access to clean water, but they are wrong. One third of the Earth's human population doesn't have toilets. And 10% of humanity doesn't have access to clean water. A lot of people catch diseas because they have to find water far away from their home, and they have to go there on foot and take home the dirty, usually infected water. That's terrible. Unfortunately children in these countries don't have the opportunity to go to school to learn how to write or read, or get any education. In my oppinion people don’t protect water until something catastrophic happens to it. I'm also trying to save water. Insted of bathing I usually have a shower.

Submitted by oldsocket on Thu, 04/16/2020 - 13:59

Water is one of the most important substances that are needed for plants and animals. We cannot lead our day to day life without water. Water makes up more than half of our body weight. Without water, all organisms in the world would die. Water is necessary not only for drinking but also for our day to day life purposes like bathing, cooking, cleaning, and washing and so on. We cannot imagine a life without water. Other than drinking and household purposes, water is important for existence of our world. Conservation of Water is important for our goodness and for the future to come. We need to take initiatives to save water whether there is scarcity or not.
Profile picture for user empty

Submitted by empty on Fri, 07/26/2019 - 08:57

Although Water covers over 70% of the Earth . as it was mentioned above , a lot of people don't have safe water . The dirty water that the poor people with lack of clean water have to drink , causes death all over the world . THIS IS SERIOUS . Those people have the right to have access to clean water , as much as we do ! So, we have to save water because we need it .
Profile picture for user Youjiro

Submitted by Youjiro on Tue, 02/19/2019 - 14:16

We can drink water as long as I want it.water provide system is most important for modem life.Some country is necessary water provide system such as Africa ,south america etc. I know some country provide knowledge of making water system to the poor country.I think problem of water shortage is environment.Environment where people live is not safe in Africa.
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