Water Heroes

Date: 18th Feb 2025 Author: jenny stephens

4000 litres of water to produce a cotton t-shirt.
Over 2000 litres used the production of a beef burger.

Yet we have to reduce our water use down to 110 l from 140 litres per person, each day, in 5 years to stay within our planetary boundaries and ensure clean safe water for everyone.

Every Cub loves a good fact or two and our recent visit from the Wessex Water education team really brought our drinking water to life.

Exploring the water cycle and how it reaches our taps gave many of our Cubs a new perspective.

We then formed our own ‘water companies’ (aka teams of intrepid Cubs) to test out different filtration methods. Sand, gravel, clay beads, etc were all carefully tested and the results compared using proper scientific equipment- a secchi disk and a light meter. Some great team work and ideas, and even better name suggestions for their tables

  • Water Masters
  • Newbridge Power Water
  • Etc!

We ended with a group discussion pretending to be water planners. How best to secure our future supplies- reuse, new reservoirs, more groundwater, buying it from elsewhere, or reducing our water footprint?
Thank you to Cubs for excellent behaviour, participation and enthusiasm. Sam from Wessex Water, thanks to you for inspiring us all and giving us such an insight to our drinking water. I think everyone will now agree water is definitely worthy of being treasured.
Dwayne Fields proudly holds the title of the UK's 11th Chief Scout

An explorer, adventurer and TV presenter, Dwayne's been seen in BAFTA nominated Channel 5 series Race to the Pole, on BBC Springwatch, Countryfile, National Geographic and Disney+.

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