Earth Science Week Classroom Activities

Are You a Water Waster?

Activity Source:

Education Place, Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company. All rights reserved.

Try this experiment to find out if you’re a water waster.

Materials

• clean, empty, one-quart milk cartons
• new toothbrushes
• toothpaste

Procedure

1. Brush your teeth with the water running. At the same time, have another person fill the containers with the running water-until you finish brushing.
2. Record how many quart containers are filled. Then use that information to figure out how much water your family uses to brush their teeth.
3. Multiply the number of family members by the number of times each person brushes his or her teeth per day.
4. Then multiply the result by the total number of quarts of water you collected during one brushing. That’s how many quarts of water your family can save by not running the water when they brush!