Learning to save water through a 'Hackathon Day'

Pupils from St Robert Southwell Primary School had an interactive opportunity to learn even more about water saving, at a recent Hackathon Day, organised by our supplier Baringa.

We first set the scene about the importance of clean fresh drinking water, how we use it in our everyday life, and how much of a precious resource water is for all living things on earth. We began with a task for teams of six children to create a water tower of spaghetti and marshmallows. Everyone worked together in their groups, and the children were very creative, making water towers in all shapes and sizes - one group built a very tall tower, and one of the challenges was making sure the tower stood up independently.

The second part was delivering a show and tell of some new initiatives we have, to reduce water usage, such as our new smart water meters, which give more control for people to monitor their water usage at home. We explained that leaky loos are one of the most common leaks inside the home, and how people can identify leaks from toilets with a leaky loo strips. Then we showed a video of how much water can be saved by switching a showerhead to a more water efficient one, along with explaining that shorter showers really help reduce water usage.

One of the highlights of the day was having a visit from our fabulous water tankering team. The class had a tour of the tanker and were fascinated to learn the tanker held up to 20,000 cubic metres of water. They learnt about how water tankers are used to bring clean fresh water to communities if there’s a burst pipe, and how we keep customers’ taps flowing when incidents occur. The best part for the children was to sit up in the drivers cab and see out over the steering wheel.

After these activities and a quick break, the children were ready and energised for the water design challenge. Pupils were asked to come up with eight water saving ideas or devices in eight minutes, then to choose one idea from their team to develop. Working in small teams, they chose a business name, and created a brand design and a product design, before talking about how much their idea would cost and whether people could be given special offers. There were lots of great ideas shared.

The Hackathon Day built on the background information already learnt at the school from the water protectors, the school had downloaded the assembly from our website all part of our NEW WAVE education programme, the assembly is curriculum linked and is designed to learn our precious resource and how to become a water protector.

In total, 30 Year 5 pupils took part in the Hackathon Day, and they were given bags of goodies to take home, including an activity book about saving water and giving lots of useful information about the importance of not putting fat, oil and grease down the drain to avoid blockages, and only flushing the 3 p’s - paper, pee and poo - down the loo.

Our colleagues from Baringa said: “We were so proud to see how quickly and passionately the Year 5 pupils took to the Water Usage challenge question. Their ideas were so creative, and questions were so curious, and their final presentations were all really well thought through. It was great to take the opportunity to showcase what working in the water industry looks like and hopefully inspire a new generation to take part!”