Written by Mary-Anne Creasy
The
The Question of Water
Question
Text type: Argument Level: O (34) Word count: 1,340 Content vocabulary black water condensation desalination drought evaporation gray water groundwater pollution precipitation recycle reservoirs resource sewage treatment plant vapor
of Water
Irregularly spelled words areas because built Earth enough environment oceans once precious reservoirs straight Key concepts • Water is a precious resource that is used by all of us in many different ways. • People have developed many ways to access, use, and recycle water. Reading strategy Identifying the main ideas and supporting details Paired book Ming Saves the Day © 2012–2015 EC Licensing Pty Ltd. This work is protected by US copyright law, and under international copyright conventions, applicable in the jurisdictions in which it is published. All rights reserved. The trademark “Flying Start to Literacy” and Star device is a registered trademark of EC Licensing Pty Ltd in the US. Purchasers of this book may have certain rights under applicable copyright law to copy parts of this book. Purchasers must make the necessary enquiries to ascertain whether and to what extent they have any such right in the jurisdiction in which they will be using the book. Photograph on cover, page 1 © thinkstock; p. 15 © thinkstock; p. 18 (bottom right) © thinkstock; p. 26 (middle) © thinkstock; p. 2 (foreground) © Hugo Maes; p. 4 (left) © Stuart Monk, (2nd from left) © Dusan Kostic, (3rd from left) © Robert Crow, p. 5 (left) © Rmarmion, (2nd from left) © Jim Mills, (3rd from left) © George Burba, (right) © SHEHZAD NOORANI; p. 6 (bottom) © Harryfn; p. 7 © Jacek Chabraszewski; p. 10 © Mogens Trolle; p. 11 © View7; p. 12 (top) © Rmarmion, (bottom left) © Aaharewood, (bottom middle) © Lane Erickson, (bottom right) © Nancy Dressel; p. 13 (top) © Jim Mills, (bottom) © Sean Ealy; p. 17 (top right) © Photoeuphoria, (top middle) © Sergey Mostovoy, (top right) STOCK4B-RF -; p. 18 © Ina Van Hateren; p. 19 (top left) © Dusan Kostic, (top right) © Robert Crow, (middle) © George Mastoridis , (bottom) © Christian Noval; p. 23 © Carmentianya; p. 26 (top) © Sergey Mostovoy; p. 26 (bottom) © Christopher Robbins; p. 27 (bottom) © Andrew Olney; p. 27 (middle) © Nancy Dressel, all from Dreamstime; p. 27 top and bottom © thinkstock; p. 14 © thinkstock; all photographic backgrounds © thinkstock.
Illustrations on pages 8–9, 10, 11, 16–17, 21, 24, and 25 by Guy Holt; page 19 by Derek Schneider. Developed by Eleanor Curtain Publishing Designed by Derek Schneider Printed and bound in China through Colorcraft Ltd, Hong Kong Distributed in the USA by Okapi Educational Publishing Inc. Phone: 866-652-7436 Fax: 800-481-5499 Email: info@myokapi.com www.myokapi.com www.flying-start-to-literacy.com ISBN: 978-1-74320-108-4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 15 16 17 18 19
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Written by Mary-Anne Creasy
Contents Introduction
4
Where does water come from?
6
8
The water cycle
Where is all the water?
10
How do we get water?
12
14
The Colorado River
Where does waste water go? 16 How much water is used to make things? 18
How much water is used to
make a cheeseburger?
20
Is there enough water?
22
24
Making fresh water
Can I do anything to help?
26
A note from the author
28
Introduction Water is a precious resource that we cannot live without. It is used by people all around the world every day. People use water for drinking, washing, cleaning, and growing food. In fact, water is used to make everything we use every day.
As the number of people on Earth grows, the demand on our water supply increases. In the future we will need to be even more careful how we look after and use our precious water supply.
Most of the water that people use comes from rivers and lakes. Clever ways have been developed to store and deliver this water to the people who need it. Once the water has been used, it can be cleaned so it can be used again – we can recycle water.
4
Water fact In the last 50 years, the world’s population has increased by almost four billion people, but the amount of water has stayed the same.
5
Where does
water
come from? The next time you are about to have a drink of water, think about where this water came from.
The water you are drinking may have fallen as rain last week, but it is not new water. It has been around for as long as Earth has been here. Every drop of water on Earth has been here since Earth began. There will never be any more water on Earth than there is now. This water is always moving and the same water is used over and over again. It moves from the surface of the Earth into the air, and back to the surface again. This is called the water cycle. 6
7
The water cycle
2.
In the air the water vapor cools down
and turns into water droplets. This is called condensation. You can see these water All water on Earth is part of the water cycle. This is how the water cycle works: 1.
The water in rivers, lakes, and oceans
droplets as they form clouds. 3.
When there are a lot of water droplets
in the clouds, they become very heavy.
gets heated by the sun and turns into a gas
The air cannot hold the water anymore and
called water vapor. The vapor moves up
the water falls back to Earth as rain, hail,
into the air. This is called evaporation.
sleet, or snow. This is called precipitation.
condensation precipitation evaporation
8
9
Where is all the
water?
Some fresh water is found under the ground. It is called groundwater. There is much more fresh water under the ground than on the Earth’s surface. Although Earth is covered in water, most of this water is in the oceans.
We need fresh water, but only a tiny amount
Ocean water is
of all the water on Earth is fresh water.
salt water and
Most of the fresh water on Earth is frozen
we cannot drink
in glaciers and ice caps in Antarctica and
it or use it to
the Arctic. We cannot use it
grow crops.
for drinking or to grow crops.
Arctic
Water fact Nearly all the water on Earth is salt water and we cannot use it.
97% 2.4% 0.6%
Only a tiny portion of the Earth’s fresh water is salt
found on the surface of
salt water water
the Earth. This water is in lakes, rivers,
frozen
frozen water water
fresh fresh water
water
Antarctica
streams, swamps, and ponds. Most of the water we use for drinking and for growing crops comes from rivers and lakes. 10
11
How do we get
water? In most places around the world, people can easily get water by turning on taps in their homes. The water is pumped
Water is collected and stored in water tanks.
In some places, people get their water from tanks that collect water when it rains. Other people get their water straight from rivers, dams, or lakes close to their homes.
from the water supply through pipes and into homes. Drinking water is filtered and cleaned before it goes through the pipes.
12
This is a pump station on a lake. It pumps water from the lake for people to use.
13
The Colorado River
Dams, reservoirs, and canals have been built along the river to store and deliver
What happens when people
water to where it is needed.
don’t have a fresh water
Water from the Colorado
supply close by?
River is transported for 242 miles through tunnels,
The Colorado River is a long
canals, and underground
river that runs through parts
pipelines to be used by the
of the USA and Mexico, where
people of California.
there is very little rainfall.
The water travels up and
Water from the river is shared
down mountains and
by people from Mexico and
across deserts to reach the
from seven different states in
people who need it.
the USA. Many of these people live a long way away from
The Hoover Dam on the Colorado River.
the river.
Water fact More than 26 million people rely on the water from the Colorado River. 14
15
Where does waste go?
water
In most homes, waste water goes down the
When we brush our teeth, flush the toilet,
plant. A sewage treatment plant is a huge
or use the washing machine, we use water.
factory that removes any substances in the
After we have used this water, it is dirty and
water that could harm the environment.
becomes waste water. There are different sorts
When the water is clean, it is returned to a
of waste water. Waste water from toilets is
river or lake, or released onto the land.
called black water. Waste water from other
This water becomes a part of the water cycle
parts of a household is called gray water.
once again.
drain and is taken to a sewage treatment
condensation precipitation evaporation
sewage treatment plant
16
house
factory
water treatment plant
17
How much
water
is used to make things?
This table shows the average quantities of water used to produce one pound of each of four different foods.
Corn: 115 gallons
Beef: 2,100 gallons*
People have used water to make or produce almost everything we use. Nearly three quarters of all fresh water is used by farmers to water their crops. Some crops such as rice and cotton need a lot of water
Wheat: 175 gallons
to grow. And water is also used in factories to make the things we use every day.
Water fact Nearly 3,000 gallons of water are used to produce one cotton shirt. 18
Rice: 400 gallons
*This water is used mainly for the production of food for the animal. = 50 gallons 19
How much water is used to make a cheeseburger?
Water is used to grow the wheat to make the flour that is used to make the bun. Water is also used to grow other ingredients in the cheeseburger such as tomato and lettuce.
When you eat a cheeseburger, you might not
And it takes about three gallons of water
think that you are “using water.” But did you
to make one sheet of paper to wrap
know that a huge amount of water is used
the cheeseburger!
to make one cheeseburger? The amount of water used to make a cheeseburger is about 634 gallons. Most of this water is used to grow the crops that the cattle eat. Cattle eat grass, hay, and grains such as oats and barley. All of these crops need water to grow. Water is needed to make the cheese to put on the hamburger. Again, water is needed to feed the cows that produce the milk that is used to make cheese. Water is also used in factories where the milk is turned into cheese. 20
21
Is there enough
water?
The population of the world is growing.
Long droughts, a growing population, and
Having more people in the world means that
the pollution of water have made people
we need more fresh water. Many people are
realize that clean, fresh water is very precious.
concerned that there may not be enough fresh water for everyone.
But there are many ways to save the fresh water we already have and to use less of it.
In many places people rely on rainfall to
And there are also ways to create fresh
fill dams and reservoirs. Due to changing
water out of water from the oceans.
weather patterns there is a lot less rain in some areas and therefore a lot less water
The water in this reservoir is getting very low because it has not rained for a long time.
can be stored. Some places are running out of water.
Water fact In some parts of the world people do not
22
have clean, fresh water. They are forced to get their water from rivers and waterholes that are polluted.
23
The second way is to heat seawater in large
Making fresh water
tanks. When the vapor from the hot seawater cools down, it creates droplets of fresh water on the inside walls of the tanks. This water is then collected.
Most of the water on Earth is salt water. In some cities near the ocean, factories have water vapor
been built to turn seawater into fresh water. The process of taking salt out of seawater to make fresh water is called desalination,
pure water
and it can happen in two ways. The first way is for seawater to be forced
salt water heat
through very tiny filters to remove the salt. pressure
Water fact salt water
pure water filter
24
Sailors used small desalination machines on their sailing boats about 2,000 years ago. These machines had filters to remove the salt from seawater. 25
Can I do anything to help?
Check for dripping taps
There are a lot of things you can do to save
This stops the water
water. Every drop of water you save helps
evaporating before
the world’s water supplies.
it is used by the plants.
Here are some ideas:
Make sure the washing
Take shorter showers. C heck that you have a water-saving shower-head fitted. Turn off the tap when
at home and at school. Water your garden in the cool parts of the day.
machine and dishwasher are full before they are turned on. Encourage other people to save water, too.
you brush your teeth.
26
27
A note from the author The large city where I live suffered a drought for about six years. The water level in our city’s dam got so low that we were not allowed to water our gardens or wash our cars.
Early Emergent Stage
Emergent Stage
Early Stage
transitional Early Fluent Stage Stage CHapter books
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Level N (30) Paired books Salamander Surprise!
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The King of Waste
Saving Wild Wolves
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water savers in the modern world, so I had a personal interest when writing this book. Many people try to conserve water today. But there is water usage that is hidden in things that we eat and things that we buy. This was the most surprising information I found, and being aware of it may be the next step to becoming better water savers.
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