Where does the water in your sink come from? Well, lots of faraway places – but to reach your faucet, it first has to be pumped up into a “water tower,” a giant tank high off the ground. When the water comes back down, it pushes down on itself and rushes through underground pipes to every building in town. Each water tower holds about 1 day’s worth of water needed for its town. It can be a million gallons or more — enough for 50 swimming pools!
Wee ones: Hold a glass under a faucet, turn on the water, and count “1 alligator, 2 alligator…” until it’s full. How many seconds (alligators) did it take? Try again running the water faster!
Little kids: If it takes 8 minutes to fill a bucket of water from your faucet, but 10 minutes to fill your bathtub, which one takes longer to fill? Bonus: How much longer does the tub take?
Big kids: Can you “spell” the number 1 million in digits? Bonus: If a water tower starts with 1 million gallons, and then 100,000 gallons are used that morning, how much water is left in the tank before it refills?
Answers:
Wee ones: Different for everyone’s faucet…see what you get!
Little kids: The tub takes longer. Bonus: 2 minutes longer (10-8).
Big kids: 1,000,000. Bonus: 900,000 gallons.
