Clean Water and “The Water Princess”

Create a water filtration system to explore how nature filters our water! Learn about the importance of clean water and hear the story of Princess Gie Gie who walks miles from her African village to collect water for her home.

IDEAL AGE: 4+

Learn Together

Water makes up 60% of our body! It’s essential to our body’s survival, which is why it’s so important that everyone has access to clean drinking water and that we care for this crucial natural resource.

Materials

Computer, tablet, or phone to watch the video
A comfortable place to sit together
Plastic water or soda bottle cut in half
Coffee filters
Rocks
Sand
Soil
Water
Unsweetened drink mix, food coloring, or turmeric

Create Together

Enjoy a reading of The Water Princess by Sankofa Read Aloud.

Princess Gie Gie’s kingdom is beautiful, but clean drinking water is scarce in her small African village.

The Water Princess is inspired by the childhood of African–born model Georgie Badiel. Growing up in Burkina Faso, Georgie and the other girls in her village had to walk many miles each day to collect water. This story shares the struggle of access to clean drinking water that affects many people all over the world.

Where does your water come from? In New York City the water supply comes from three surface sources: The Croton watershed, Catskill watershed, and Delaware watershed.

Ecologists work hard to keep the forests in the Catskill Mountains healthy so that they can continue to filter the water that goes to the Catskill watershed.

Create a filtration system similar to the forests in the Catskills that ensures New York City has fresh drinking water.

Place the top half of the bottle upside down (like a funnel) inside the bottom half. The top half will be where you build your filter and the bottom half will hold the filtered water.
Line the inside of the top half of the bottle with a coffee filter, then add layers of filtering materials: rocks, sand, and soil. Think about what each material might remove from the dirty water and in what order we should layer the materials.
Use unsweetened drink mix, food coloring, or turmeric to act as the pollutant your filter will clean.
Slowly pour the “polluted water” through the filter. What does the filtered water look like? Did you successfully remove all the pollutants? If not, try different layers of filtering materials until your water comes out clean.

In the story, Princess Gie Gie’s mother tells her to dream of a day that she could bring water to her village. When Georgie Badiel grew up she started The Georgie Badiel Foundation. The foundation believes that everyone has a fundamental right to clean drinking water. The foundation builds, restores, and maintains water wells in Burkina Faso and neighboring Sub-Saharan African countries. Learn more about The Georgie Badiel Foundation.

Learn more about how New York City gets its clean water.

Enjoy more stories with Sankofa Read Aloud.