Research questions for EDCI-580

 

L: interviewer T: interviewee

The first step: (Understanding teacher’s definition of water problem)

L: I am going to ask the questions step by step. The first question I want to understand is: What comes spontaneously to your mind when you hear the key words “community water”?

T:well we look…the first thing comes to my mind is watershed. Put the two words together, and it water and shed two go together and we all living in the watershed. Watershed is all the area around the stream. And I try to teach children about what the watershed they are living so they start to think about the water around them and where it comes from and where it goes.

L:Which aspect of water problem do you consider critical in your life?

T:crticial?

L:very important , the very important part of the water problem or community water.

T:humm, I see. Humm.well, humm. I think about eater issues, the first thing I think is building awareness. Hummm, many students or many families don’t have an awareness of water. We’d taken for grant for it. We have lots, lots of water, so we think there is no worry about this. So first thing is to build the awareness, so let people become aware that the water is important and there isn’t much water. And if we learn those of things then you can start to teach them how to careful water, how to care about it. So that’s what I think the most critical thing is awareness of the water issues.

L:What causes the current water problems?

L: Is there any water problem and the reason for it.

T:well the biggest the water problem we face right now is, hummm, you know the shortage of water. And so hummm, we see we’re growing population here. More and more people here, more demand for the use of water. So the local governments have try to get teachers to teach children and their families how to conserve water. So that’s what the biggest issue. Hummm, another issue that I am also interesting is the water we bring in, we don’t have not much of it. But the problem is we waste of water, all we waste of water. All our waste of water that all goes into ocean without treatment. And so that’s the big issues too in Victoria. So that’s two things, water supply is limited and waste water isn’t treated.

L: I see.

T:So that’s causes pollution.

L: Car pollution? Car?

T: No, causes. The water. Our water, you know like flushing the toilet, water down to the stream is causing pollution or in the ocean.

L: That’s also happen in Taiwan.

T:Yes

L: And I know to know, In what aspects would you emphasize the importance of water such as water shortage or water pollution? Isn’t that the two issues you want to focus for your students?

T:Yap.

L:How would you direct children’s attention to water issues?

T: How do I direct their attention to water?

L:Yes.

T: Humm. Well I can say, we are, hum, We try to build the awareness. Humm, and we do, one of the way we do that is with variety of activities that shows two things: How little water there is in the earth. So the first we show that. Like how little fresh water it is. And we had a little activity do that. One thing I gave students a couple drops of waters.

L: Drops?

T: Drops! Yea, put on their desk or put on their books, drops of water. And I said to them, see how long you can protect your water. So you don’t lose it.

L: oh.

T: And you see children tried to protect it. And it is very hard to put the water in the hands, of course.

L: Yes.

T: A couple of drops of water in our hand. And think to protect that. They had hard time to protect that. Even children who protect it for a long time at the corner of desk, and they are very good at protect it, but it evaporate. So over the day, over a few hours, they lose their couple of drops. So that’s I try to teach children, you know, how difficult to take care of water. So, that’s one way. And then another thing we do is we try to teach children, you know, how much they use. So humm, for instance, if you take a shower, we have this, we have this beg, you put over the shower, and you turn on the water for the shower and you time on how long it takes to fill the beg up. So may be you use an one liter of water in a, I don’t know, six or …six seconds or something, ok, then they go to take a shower, then time the shower, then they say, oh, it a ten minutes shower. How many liters would that be? So it keep them to take activity to keep track of the water, and they have to keep track all the water, and then we tell them, you know how many times so you lush the toilet today? And then, how many liter is that? And we do that for the whole week. We get them to graph the water they use .You know, they make graph showing how much they used. It gets the idea, the track.

L: It’s a very clear idea.

T: You know, Canadian use an awful lot of water. You know they did the graph, once I get this graph, American and Canadian use more water per person than anyone else in the world. It’s a very high water use this year.

L: Does that mean you have more water than other country?

T: I.. probably, probably because we are not use to looking after it. So… I can’t remember exactly, but huge, I mean you put it on a bar graph, Canadian bar graph is this high, and American bar graph is this high and then the next one is half of that, like going to European, then of course if you goes to India or Africa. That goes right down very, very little water use per person. So,Canadian is big users that means big wasters. Right, that the thing we’d like to show kids. To teach them about the issues. How much they use and how much they compare to other people. How much is that?

L:Is there anyother resources you use to teach children the importance of water?

T:Yes, humm, that’s two things we use. That’s one comes from the federal government, the Canadian government. That’s a whole series of books on water. So we use it to teach about water, the science of water, and water comes from. And our provincial government has a book called the water stewardship. And then here in Victoria are capital regional distract teaches about water. And they have a fellow who will come to your school, it all dress up with the science lab coat on, the big wagon and funny clothes, they call them Dr. Drip. Dr. Drip. They come across the classroom and they teach kids about water.

L: Oh, I see. And how do you spell the Dr. Drip?

T: It’s Doctor and drip. So it’s Dr. Drip.D.R.I.P.

L: What do you call the water program. Oh, It’s water stewardship. S.T.E.W.A.R.D.S.H.I.P. Then stewardship means care for something doesn’t belong to you. So you become a steward of water stewardship.

L: So are these you find by yourself or the government already provide you.

T: Yes, they provide by the government. Teachers have to go look for them, but they are up there.

L: Do you find others except the government provide you? Like other institute? Or other place you can find more information for your children?

T: Other than government. .…..I can’t think of anything, what information comes from non-government? Oh, Yes,sometimes there is a special interest group, they look this issues, hummm, O, I think that’s the Year club, the Evergreen society.Okey? These are special interest group and organization, amm, so there is Evergreen, Sea Club, World wild like fun, and the ships program, they do have stewardship as well.

L:How do you promote water recycle/conservation/protection/or other issues in class?

T: Absolutely we do do things with a try to get children now to check how much water they use, but after they know how much they use, we ask them to track how do you cut down, how do you reduce. You know, Humm, we do very little recycling of water, but I mean you can do that, like save sank water, and your garden, and that kind of things. Humm, We do very little in the school. Of course we recycle other things. We recycle papers, cans and bottles.

L: Would you ask for support from parents, school administrators, and city government to supplement either your teaching?

T: Yes, all of them are important things. Humm, administers at school must support what you do, if they don’t support, it very difficult for teachers to take on that. Parents, like parents support. Like we send things home, and we ask them to do the water, to check the water at home. We ask students to look around the dripping tanks. You know we need parents to prepare them, so we need parents. Humm. And often like the local government will reward the schools, students for their efforts. That’s good for them too. It’s very much a community efforts.

L:What other human/environmental resources do you also plan to use?

T: with students? Hummm.

I try to use as wide range of resource as I can. One thing that you have to watch out as a teacher, is that humm, especially you want to teach anything on the environment. That’s about bias. You know, something can be, if you get something from this the sea area club, they have certain bias and perspective. And they teach that only from their bias. So I try to get as many different resources as I can, so the students can have fair idea about what to do. If you only hear from one source, you can get, not get the whole picture.

L:What do you expect children to learn from the program on a long-term basis?

T: Well the goal there is, that’s just. I am teacher, I use the topic to get our students to get exciting about learning, Like students know there is a problem.Ok, we running out of water, and then them brain storm, they learn about it, they read about it, I get them top write story about it. I get them to make a poster about it. And they’re very exciting to do these things. Because they know, they are trying to solve the problem, so you see for me as a teacher, I get students to get exciting about learning, about writing, about reading, because they know they are doing something important. That’s all I want. Now, what the government wants, on a long term basis, the government is hoping to create people who have a backup for a long term, have a better awareness of the environment. So the government is hoping that for the rest of their life, they will turn the water when they wash their teeth, right? They’ll turn off water, or have a quick shower. So they will become better students for the environment. There are two goals, one is long term goal for the environment. And one is teacher’s goal, teacher’s goal is always to teach. So I am looking for good ways to teach.

L:Yes you are very good. My last question is: What influences do you think the program would make to the whole environment?

T:Well, over a long time it can, I think it can have an impact, I do believe that when

you change, when you want to change on our world, you change one person at a time, so, this is the way that make the world change. And that I do the program for a long period of time. It can influence the, have a great impact on the environment. It can not only protect the water sources, but also things like wet lands, wet, like rivers and streams. They also can get protect as well. That can have a long term impact in that.