Background
Windmill Springs Elementary School has an enrollment of 584 students. Enrolled student percentages are broken down into the following groups: Asians 53%, Hispanics 40%, Caucasians 2%, and other ethnicities 5%. 1A unit on water and the components needed to assure and maintain good health needs to be pertinent and available to all family members including the students.
Windmill Springs Elementary School is one of twenty-one schools in the Franklin McKinley School District, a Title 1 district, located in the East Side of San Jose, CA. The Windmill Springs neighborhood is comprised of families that are generally: Asian and/or Hispanic; single parent households; families with gang affiliations; homes where English is not the native language nor is it spoken at home; grandparents and/or other guardians raising students (due to parental issues) and some middle-class families.
Windmill Springs is a K-8 campus where older students are role models and help the younger ones with their schoolwork. The water unit could be an avenue the students approach to teach younger students the importance of drinking water and keeping hydrated and how it aids to maintaining good health. Many siblings attend Windmill so families would also benefit from the information brought home.
A science unit taught on the importance of maintaining a state of hydration, recognizing the signs of not consuming enough water daily, and the health consequences it produces within the body would be brought home and practiced by all family members. Also information will be distributed along with video clips highlighting and alerting the students to the dangers, and diseases associated with contacting contaminated water sources. I raise this point because due to the high numbers of ethnic groups at the school, there is a strong possibility the students travel to foreign lands on their school vacations and encounter questionable sources of drinking water.
It is extremely important for students to take a critical look at how much water they consume on a daily basis. The ingested amount matters to the state of their health. The water level must be maintained at high enough levels within all systems of the body to ensure and maintain health. This unit also provides students with engineering capabilities to research and address a global health concern of not having enough potable water available to fulfill and sustain an appropriate level for health purposes.
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