Public Service Commission
of West Virginia
Earth Day Lesson Plan: Let’s Conserve Water
Grades:
This lesson is appropriate for Grades 3-4
Goal:
To demonstrate how little fresh water is available for our use and to show why it is
important to conserve water resources.
Materials:
 1-gallon milk jug
 Eye dropper
 3 clear 1-cup containers
 Tablespoon
 Clear measuring cup
 World map or globe
 Tap water
 Blue food coloring
Preparation:
Label the milk jug “Total Water on Earth,” and label each of the 3 cup sized containers
“Total Fresh Water,” “Total Liquid Water,” and “Usable Water.”
Demonstration:
1) Have students fill the 1-gallon jug with tap water and put in a few drops of blue food
coloring to make it easier to see the water level.
Explain to students the water in the jug represents all the water on earth.
Discuss all the places where water might be found: oceans, polar caps, glaciers, icebergs,
lakes, rivers, marshes, groundwater, and clouds – even inside plants, animals, and people.
Use the map/globe to show land mass, ocean, and polar ice cap distributions.
2) Have students measure out ¼ cup of water from the jug and pour it into the container
labeled “Total Fresh Water”.
Explain that this represents all of the world’s fresh water. The rest of the water in the jug
is salt water from the oceans.
Ask students where fresh water is found:
 Lakes
 Rivers
 Ponds
 Streams
 Creeks
 Groundwater, etc.
3) Have students measure out 4 tablespoons of the fresh water and pour it into the
container labeled “Total Liquid Water.”
Explain this represents all the fresh water that is available for us to use.
Ask students where the rest of the water in the first cup is.
 Frozen in glaciers
 Frozen in ice caps
 In the earth’s atmosphere
 More than 90% of the world’s fresh water is located in Antarctica.
4) Using the eye dropper, have students remove one drop of water from the “Total Liquid
Water” cup and drop it into the third cup labeled “Useable Water.”
Explain to students this represents all the water that is available for our use because most
of our water is polluted or too hard to get.
The water that is on earth now is the same water that has been here since the dinosaurs
lived.
This is also the only water we will have in the future. No new water is being made. We
must protect our water or we’ll have to live with polluted water or pay to have it cleaned
up.
5) Discuss why it is so important to conserve water and to protect our water supply from
further pollution.