The world has a lot of rivers. Kids might see one on the way to school, and take it for granted. Maybe they are unaware and toss candy wrappers and water bottles into the river without giving it a second thought. By the end of the river education lesson, kids will have learned to take better care of rivers in order to be better stewards of humanity and the earth.
River Water Sources
Water has the distinction of interconnecting with other communities as well. Many different types of sources may feed into a river, from lakes and bogs to springs and even groundwater sources. Even water that has melted off of a mountain or a glacier may feed a river. Some rivers flow into other rivers where tributaries come together at headwaters.
The channel of water flow that people can see is called a river. Much more water may be flowing, though, as there is water coming from all different sources, and flowing farther underwater than the eye can see.
Role Of A River
In essence, it is important to teach kids about rivers to enlighten them about the role of a river. It is a way to go places, such as a boat that brings kids from one area of the river to school. Yet, the boats need to avoid using motors that harm wildlife, while ensuring that their batteries and fuel do not sully the river either.
Rivers themselves move water while supporting a habitat and economies. The movement of water from one community to another brings nutrients that may otherwise not be available to the organism, plants, fish, and even to humans.
Hydroelectricity facilities provide the energy to light up the world. Again, while humanity harnesses the power of a river, it needs to continually protect the river. Any waste from industry that is toxic should not be tossed in a river. Fuel should not get exhausted or dumped into the river when transporting people.
Going Back In Time
Sometimes the best way to demonstrate the value of a river is to rewind time. Back in time, human civilization was able to burgeon and grow because of mighty rivers. That’s why teachers will often focus on the importance of the Nile River in Egypt or the Amazon River in Brazil when they are teaching their students about waterways.
The drawback today is that a kid may not interact with rivers very much. They may live in a city and have no concept of what it means to take a boat ride, or go fishing. Using history allows the teacher to take a child out of their rather small world understanding and expand the child’s mind.
Simpler And More Important
For ancient Egyptians the Nile River’s silt created a foundation for one of humanity’s early successes. It actually altered the way all of us live going forward. Where the mouth of the Nile River let out had the natural benefit of a tremendous amount of silt.
What this did was create a fertile hotbed for farming where the delta formed. The Mighty Mississippi River also has such a delta. That’s only one part of its prowess. The idea is to demonstrate that rivers are vital for humanity to have access to healthy food.
Were it not for the Nile, Egyptians would have been robbed of the luxury to create art, build, and have such a rich culture. Because of the delta, they were well fed, without having to do much more than catch a fully stocked delta where fish were plentiful and fruit and vegetables always available for the taking.
While it is great how much rivers can do for humanity, education must include how humanity can save the rivers of the world. They do interconnect and that means that chemicals, pollution, acid rain, dying fish, and drought are all bad for humanity as much as they are for the plants and river life.
Not only is it nice to have clean water, but it turns out that the whole human population relies on it for survival. This is the same story as how the Egyptians relied on the Nile to provide sustenance for them. Humanity has thereafter relied on rivers for survival since then.
It is important to bring home the fact that the world’s most successful cities and civilizations often sit along a major waterway. The reason has to do with transportation, food, farming, and milling. Yet, humanity treats the very water that has allowed us to flourish like garbage. It is how we eat, provide power for homes, mills, and machines.
Rivers have been a supplier of food for civilization since the beginning. The waterways provide food even today. More than that, though, it is vital to keep the water clean.
Waterways interconnect around the world. The issue is that some countries are less glowing international citizens when it comes to caring about the cleanliness of the world’s water. In some places, untreated raw sewage is dumped it major rivers that flow everywhere in the world. The proper care and love of the earth’s interconnected waterways is the main way to ensure the success and health of humanity and the planet well into the future.
Water is a crucial aspect of life for humanity and much of life on this planet. Droughts or far-off clean water sources may make a civilization pick u and move elsewhere. Flooding waters are a powerful force as well, where civilizations overbuild unwisely and ignorantly into the flood plain Every river has a flood plain, which allows for the abundance of water.
Keeping kids educated about the sources of water and how they impact human life is important. It sounds corny, but the children really are our future. Educating them early and often about the vital life force that water plays in survival is important for finding solutions to the problems of water for the whole world.
Education is the first step to ensuring the survival of the planet. It is the only way.