Drinking Water Pollution

It’s funny how not-too-long-ago, bottled water was the new thing. I laughed when I saw how many people insisted on drinking bottled water and considered them foolish. I had been drinking tap water my whole life and everything was fine with me, so why pay money for water?

Now I buy bottled water, and refill them with my Brita. Subconsciously, I feel it is a “safer” water or “purer” water, but who really knows. I guess, depending on where you get your tap water, this might be true, and it could also be the exact opposite. However, after learning more about potential pollutants of drinking (tap) water, I almost feel safer drinking water that has gone through numerous steps of the purification process. These potential pollutants are:

· Coliform Bacteria – often caused by barnyard runoff, and can be indicative of pathogens.
· Yeasts and Viruses – can cause diarrhea, vomiting, stomach cramps and fever, and that’s for people with good immune systems.
· Nitrate – can reduce your blood’s capacity to carry oxygen; especially dangerous for infants.
· Lead – can lead to lead poisoning, which affects development in young people.
· Legionella – can cause flu-like symptoms, or worse, legionellosis, which can be fatal.

I’m not going to talk about the purification process here, but I would with my class. I teach fourth graders, so if I brought this kind of stuff up to them, they wouldn’t even brush their teeth with tap water! I wouldn’t scare them into all the pollutants that can get into the drinking water, even in theory. By now, they are all used to bottled water, as evidenced by how many of them bring bottled water to school.
But a rule of thumb I like to go by is if I find it interesting, I think I can make my class find it interesting. I would be interested to know how water is purified before it gets bottled into, say, a Poland Spring bottle. This would best be done with a field trip so they can see it and understand it for themselves. I wouldn’t attempt to try any kind of “water purification” experiment or demonstration myself in the classroom (at least not at this point) because I don’t feel confident enough to be able to pull it off.

source: www.lenntech.com