Driving Question
How is clean and accessible drinking water in Philadelphia a civic responsibility?
Big Ideas
Philadelphia was the first successful model of a large urban public water system in the United States.
Access to fresh, clean, safe water is a human right and a collective responsibility.
We each play a significant role in ensuring our public water supply is clean, safe and accessible for all.
Summary
Students will learn about the motivations related to public health that led Philadelphia to design a new drinking water system to provide fresh, clean water to people.
Engage
Based on the previous class, discuss briefly the question
What do you think led Philadelphia to develop a safe and reliable public water system?
Explore and Explain
Choose three to five significant benchmark moments in the Philadelphia Water Story from 1793-1815 (Yellow Fever epidemic to Fairmount Water Works) to make an illustrated timeline of the most important events that led to the new clean public water supply system in Philadelphia.
Use these links below as resources for the above TIMELINE Activity
Students might create a google slide deck of the 3-5 important events.
Philadelphia Water History Time Line
The slide deck includes directions for the students to complete this activity.
Elaborate
For fun, ask students to write a bubble text as if they were one of the people at the celebratory event at Centre Square depicted in the Krimmel painting (linked in the Materials section). What would they say to the person next to them.
Extension
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Visit or explore online a local American Art Collection (Philadelphia Museum of Art or Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts) from this time period (early 1800’s). Compare and contrast the works of art. Discuss and learn about style, color, form, and presentation.
A sociological connection from the painting to historical newspaper documents about celebrations of the time, public gatherings, or public news could also link students to the world of the painting and help them understand different kinds of historical documents.
SOCIAL STUDIES/HISTORY
Plan a Field trip to Old City and/or the historic section of Philadelphia and explore the neighborhoods from a “historical water” perspective.
SCIENCE
Discuss waterborne diseases. Assign each student one of five waterborne diseases (cholera, giardiasis, shigellosis, amebiasis, and cryptosporidiosis). Students research the assigned disease and create a brief report including transmission, symptoms, prevention, treatment and when the disease was discovered. See Waterborne Disease Chart.
COMPARING CITIES
Find contemporary (1800) water supply/public health challenges in comparable cities like Philadelphia and New York, Chicago or Boston (Carl Smith discusses at length) and compare. This comparison could “flow” nicely into an engineering lesson on 3 different engineering solutions related to the source of water (river, aqueduct, lake).
Teacher Support
Driving Question:
How is clean and accessible drinking water in Philadelphia a civic responsibility?
Guiding Questions:
What motivated Philadelphia to develop a new water system?
What do you think led people in Philadelphia more that 200 years ago to the decision to look for a new source of drinking water?
What led people in Philadelphia to create a public water supply system (instead of private)?
Elaborate:
Why was there so much public celebrating in Philadelphia related to clean water?
Students will be able to:
- Analyze a timeline of events that motivated Philadelphia to develop a public water system.
- Use primary source text and imagery to explain why Philadelphia was motivated to develop a public water system and, once completed, why there was so much celebrating
Civic (adjective) : Of or relating to a citizen, a city, citizenship or community affairs.
Waterworks (noun) : an establishment for managing a water supply.
Have students write a reflection about the driving question followed by their opinion about whether they believe that a city should take complete responsibility of providing drinking water to everyone who lives there or is there another point of view?
PA STEELS Standard
Environmental Literacy Skills
3.4.6-8.D Investigating Environmental Issues: Gather, read and synthesize information from multiple sources to investigate how Pennsylvania environmental issues affect Pennsylvania’s human and natural systems.