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New Mexico State University

The Day the Water Ran Out

Adapted from The Desert Classroom.

Introduction

Have you ever seen a dam? Have you ever been in a flood? Why do we hold water in one place? To answer some important questions about water, this activity will have talking to people in your family and in your community. Take several days to gather information from people, books, and other sources.

What you need:

  • People: from the local water companies, from the local irrigation districts, from the community, from the County Extension Service, from your family, from the Historical Society, and other places.
  • News records: from old newspapers, magazines, Historical Society records, video tapes, storytellers,
  • Writing tools: pencil and paper or a computer word processing application.
  • Pictures: from old newspapers, old magazines, copies of photographs (so you don't ruin the original pictures), and drawing tools like markers, colored pencils, or a computer graphics application.

Questions to ask:

  • Why is water important?
  • Are floods good or bad? Why?
  • Has anyone ever been in a flood? What happened?
  • Has anyone ever helped to build a dam? Why?
  • What is the flood history of your neighborhood? Of your town? Of your state?
  • Has anyone you knew ever died in a flood or a water accident? What happened? How might things be changed to prevent that from happening again?

What to do:

  • After interviewing many different people about water and floods, write the stories that people told you. Illustrate them and print them on paper.
  • Copy the news stories you found in old newspapers and magazines. Paste them onto pages of unlined paper.
  • Copy the photos and paste them on unlined paper.
  • Bind all the pages together with a colorful cover to create a resource book about water.
  • Share the book with other classes and let them know you have some information if they need it.
  • Read the best stories to other classes or to the community during parents' night or open house.
  • Donate a copy of your book to the local library and the library in your school.