Amanda Cameron
Grade 7, Charles Whitcomb Middle School, Marlborough
Mrs. Phyllis Goldblatt, Teacher
Saving Water as a Community
There can be many ways to get people to come together to save water. One way would be to host a contest, a second would be to use advertising, and a third is to make different standards for water-using objects. These three things can make people more passionate about wanting to save water and help the environment because you want to make people interested and entertained with what you are doing to make them want to help.
First would be hosting a contest. Hosting a contest would make people come together to save water because people like to compete and win contests. A contest would make people have fun and be interested while they are doing something good for the environment. Cities could compete to see who can save the most water. The governor of a state can set up this contest based on how much water is already used in the city. They can take that number and after a certain period of time they can see how much that number went down. Whichever city's number goes down the most wins that round. For that first round the cities compete in groups of four. Once the city wins the round against three other cities they go on to a round of the winners of the other cities in that state. In the second round, all the winning cities compete. If you could get other states to participate then the winner of the state could compete against other states in the United States. This could work because all these people are working for the same goal, to win the contest, so the amount of water being used in the country would go down drastically if enough people knew about the contest. That is when you can have advertising.
With advertising you can teach people what happens when they don't save water and what they can do to save water. The ads could be interactive to get people interested. Advertisements could have fun things like jokes, multiple choice questions, or short games. With that, to get the attention of young viewers, you can have bright colors and cute characters. The advertisements would teach people that they need to save water to protect the planet as well as making changes for themselves. The advertisement should not be too long because people are trying to watch their programs and the people watching wouldn't get bored with the commercial if it was on TV. Also, if the advertisement was in a newspaper it could be colorful to catch someone's attention and informative so they know exactly what you are talking about. Lastly, if the advertisement were on a billboard, poster, or sign you would want it to be colorful to catch your attention, but not with too much color or have too many words because you don't want to distract a driver.
Some people don't like to change their lives, even if it is for the sake of the environment. In order to reach out to those people there would need to be a different strategy. Everyday water-wasting objects would need to be tweaked.
Some everyday objects that could be tweaked would be the following: All shower heads and sinks could use air with water instead of just water and dishwashers could use one less rinse cycle or run shorter. Companies could be told to make their supplies with different standards than they do now. All light bulbs are under different standards and why not make it for things that use water too?
It could be that dishwashers, laundry machines car wash stations and the like would only be allowed to use a certain amount of water per wash and those who want to keep the same lifestyles are happy. This would make the overall use of water less because even if it is only a little bit of water, every bit makes a difference.
A contest, advertising, and changing water standards can all help to make people work together to save water. People will be happier and the earth will be too.
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