World Water Day celebrates water and raises awareness of the many people living without clean drinking water. The theme of World Water Day 2024 is ‘Water for Peace’. When water is scarce or polluted, or when people have unequal, or no access, tensions can rise between communities and countries. More than 3 billion people worldwide depend on water that crosses national borders. Yet, only 24 countries have cooperation agreements for all their shared water. As climate change impacts increase, and populations grow, there is an urgent need, within and between countries, to unite around protecting and conserving our most precious resource. Climate change is primarily a water crisis. We feel its impacts through floods, rising sea levels, shrinking ice fields, wildfires and droughts. Increasing global temperatures are one of the main contributors to this problem. Extreme weather events are making water more scarce, unpredictable and polluted. Climate change is hurting water access for millions of people around the world.

When we cooperate on water, we create a positive ripple effect – fostering harmony, generating prosperity and building resilience to shared challenges. We must act upon the realization that water is not only a resource to be used and competed over – it is a human right, intrinsic to every aspect of life. This World Water Day, we all need to unite around water and use water for peace, laying the foundations of a more stable and prosperous tomorrow.

March 22 is World Water Day, where we celebrate water and raise awareness about the water crisis. You and your students can make a difference by changing how you use, consume and manage water. Be the change you want to see in the world; water affects everyone, so we need everyone to take action.
Water is the first medicine. It affects and connects us all. When a black snake threatens to destroy the Earth and poison her people's water, one young water protector takes a stand to defend Earth's most sacred resource. Inspired by the many indigenous-led movements across North America, this bold and lyrical picture book issues an urgent rallying cry to safeguard the Earth's water from harm and corruption. 




Activities
  • Read We Are Water Protectors to learn about the importance of water
  • Complete the Water Protector activities to learn about ways to make an impact in your community and further protect the Earth and waters in everyday life
  • Read The Water Walker to learn how Nokomis Josephine Mandamin responds to a call to action and a dream requesting help for Nibi (water)
  • Guided by information about Indigenous Peoples’ beliefs about the healing and spiritual powers of water, students play a listening game, matching the sounds of water to water sources in nature
  • The teacher’s guide serves as a companion to the book and provides several learning activities as well as a suggestion for an action project related to the theme of protecting water
  • Our Environmental Footprint Water Consumption has students look critically at the way they use water everyday
  • Water for Us helps young children become aware of the scarcity of clean water, where water comes from, and the need to protect it
  • Get outside and have students play for Goal 6 Clean Water & Sanitation
What did you think of We Are Water Protectors?
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Grades 3-6
The resource activities aim to increase students understanding of the various causes of water pollution and to raise awareness of the global inequality of access to safe water around the world



Activities
What did you think of Clean Water for All?
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The lessons in this resource are designed to raise awareness of the problems facing children with inadequate access to clean water or sanitation facilities. 



Activities
  • Watch the video Groundwater and Surface Water and see why they matter
  • Take the Clean Water Challenge by using different materials to attempt to clean the sample water
  • Have students create a media campaign to raise awareness about the importance of water conservation and the impact that human activity has on natural resources
  • Connect virtually with a Northern Community under a boiling water advisory and have the students ask a member of the community questions regarding their water quality and issues.
  • Learn more about Indigenous women who are water protectors in their community with the learning package Water Is Life
What did you think of Water and Sanitation for All: Bringing the Issue Home?
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This video explores key water issues, the water cycle, groundwater depletion, and some technology and techniques used to conserve water. The video describes how we consume water, like agriculture, manufacturing, and ecosystems. It explains how we use groundwater and how it could be depleted in the next sixty to a hundred years. The video also explains what an aquifer is and how they are being threatened.




Activities
  • You Be the Judge is a problem-solving activity where students make decisions that affect the environment
  • Thinking about Water and Climate Change has students discover the relationship between climate change and the health of water
  • Beat the Flood explores how STEM skills can be used to help communities be better prepared for flooding. Students design a model of a home able to withstand the effects of flooding
  • Learn more about groundwater contamination and remediation with this hands-on activity, Clean it Up
  • Access Exploring Our Growing Need for Water to learn more about water sustainability issues we are facing around the world
What did you think of How Do We Meet the Growing Need for Water?
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About Learning Inside Out

Above you will find a selection of activities, broken down by various grade levels. These guides will be released weekly and archived on our Learning Inside Out page, so you can always access the full catalogue.

All activities have been modified from resources on our R4R database, simplified and adapted for both outdoor learning in the school yard or at-home as needed. The activity descriptions above should contain all the information and links that you need!

If you'd like to view the full original resource on R4R, including curriculum connections for every province/territory, click the activity title.

We want this guide to work for you, so your feedback is invaluable to us.
Use the feedback button at the bottom of this Guide, or email us at info@LSF-LST.ca. We would also love to see photos of students engaging in the activities, please e-mail us any pictures or videos you have!
Let us know how this helped your learning and teaching from home or at school indoors and (hopefully) outdoors and what you'd like to see more of by filling out our brief feedback form!
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Please share widely with any parents and teachers in your life!
Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) is a Canadian charity with over 25 years of experience working within the education system. Our Resources for Rethinking (R4R) database is an award-winning collection of resources that are peer-reviewed by certified teachers and connected to curriculum in all provinces and territories. R4R is recommended on many Ministry of Education websites.