Tree Hugging Family » water use

Water Water Everywhere

Jennifer — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:00:28 +0000

If you haven’t caught on it’s water month here. You knew that right? In any case, I don’t want anyone to die of water overdose, so my next couple of posts I’m ignoring water issues. That said, I figured a good way to kick off water month would be to gather all things water of Tree Hugging Family past, and bring them to your attention. Also, it’ll save Peggy and I some time; we won’t have to repost on old school topics.

Hmmm, it seems like we’d have more water posts than this. Well, you know, we tend to categorize stuff oddly. Ah well. Enjoy the water posts above.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in July 2008

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Water Use Earth Day Project for Kids

Jennifer — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:00:37 +0000

Down the Drain is a useful project for anyone, and it can be done all year round. Being a science and math major, well, back in the day I was, I really like the scientific approach to this fun experiment. Of course we all want to save water – we can’t live without it.

Down the Drain encourages youth to track their water use. This project was developed by the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) which is located at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Who can participate?:

The project was developed for 4th-8th grade age kids, but is honestly useful for us all. There’s no registration, and no rules about who can try this project out. It’s ongoing, free, and there’s interaction with data from kids everywhere.

How it works:

First there are some cool water lessons to do, these lessons are designed to help kids realize just how much water is in a gallon, thus allowing them to more accurately record water use. Kids record their personal and their household’s water use separately for one week. There are water collection data sheets available at the site for both personal and home use.
At the end of one week kids can compile their results and submit the data to the project website.
In between starting and completing this project, kids get to develop a hypothesis and make predictions. Later there are tips for kids about water shortages, saving water, and even a really neat mind boggler.

Overall, this is one of the better thought out projects I’ve seen related to kids and water use. Try Down the Drain to celebrate Earth Day, or just try it because you want to save water.

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Weekly Green Audit: The Bathtub

Jennifer — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 01:11:17 +0000

We could do an entire bathroom audit this week, but that would be a lot of work. Let’s look at the different parts of the bathroom over the next few weeks. This week, we’ll start with the bathtub and shower.

Now when we do a green bathtub / shower audit, we’ll need to look at some different items. Following are the things we’ll be concentrating on.

The actual tub or shower.
The products you have sitting on your tub – shampoo, soap, sponges, etc.
Water use.
Cleaning the tub.

These are the types of issues you need to consider if you want to complete a true and total green tub audit. If you ignore water use but buy organic shampoo that’s really only doing some of what you could be doing. That’s ok; small steps are cool. But the goal is to eventually green each situation in your home to it’s fullest potential.

Start thinking about your bathtub and shower situation. Tomorrow morning we’ll get started by focusing in on one part of the audit.

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How Much Do You Know About Water Use?

Jennifer — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:52:46 +0000

A new quiz from the U.S. Green Building Council will let you know if you’re falling behind in your H2O know-how.

Take the quiz.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family