Community Members Enhance our Understanding of the World

Today our 1st grade was fortunate to have a guest speaker from our community, Ellen Tuthill, speak to them about a unit of inquiry they are exploring under Sharing the Planet. The central idea is: water is a limited and essential resource shared among all living things.
In this unit 1st grade investigates why water is essential before discussing access to fresh water, and who owns water. This is a powerful unit for students who believe that water flows from the tap everywhere in the world. They begin to comprehend the differences between fresh and salt water and how limited sources of fresh water are.
In her presentation today, Mrs. Tuthill shares photos and video clips from her trip to Jido, Ethiopia. Jiddo is a community that suffers from lack of water, as well as lack of potable water. Although the town has a well, it is contaminated with unhealthy levels of flouride. The next closest source of water is 16 KM away. Mrs. Tuthill shared the difficulties that families deal with while trying to obtain water to drink, feed their animals, water their crops...even wash their hands to ward off disease.

Throughout the Program of Inquiry here at Spicewood we incorporate many perspectives on the topics and issues we explore. Seeing the photos of kids from Jido, and hearing Mrs. Tuthill's first hand experiences broadens the world for our students.

Earlier in the year 1st grade students explored how nonprofit organizations help meets the needs of others. This built off that knowledge as students saw how organizations are working to bring fresh, clean water to the people of Jido.