Drinking Water Treatment

Students will explore one critical part of the urban water use cycle — our drinking water system.

In a bustling city the size of Philadelphia with over a million people, it is a big task to manage our water system – clean, safe water to consume at the tap. Of equal importance is managing our wastewater and storm water – cleaning up what we flush or send down the drain (out of sight and out of mind) , and what  runs off our streets and rooftops down storm drains.

All of this is managed by a vast system of pipes, pumps, plants (both the green kind and the building facilities kind!) and is often hidden from view.   This system can be described as infrastructure –  the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g. buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise.

We call this continuous movement of water through our infrastructure the urban water use cycle – from the freshwater river intakes as the source to the freshwater river outfalls returned.

Show this short video and ask students to take notes of the names of the 7 steps of the Drinking water Treatment Process

Philadelphia Drinking Water Treatment System by watching a video.

Use this  Water Treatment Poster Blank to have students document the process. The full version with the answers may be found HERE.

Have students work in small groups or as a  full class to review the steps. Use the vocabulary list to help students understand what is happening in each step of the process and the forces involved.

Students can create this as a foldable – if we help them understand where the sections break/divide

We now need to get the water into our house from the treatment process.

Have students place their house diagram (from Day 1) in the center. Take the diagram of the treatment process that they just created and connect it to the house diagram.

They can do this by using a straw or strip of paper to represent a pipe. The Day 1 diagram should be joined to the house through the “pipe” coming in at the lowest part of the house.

Once attached the diagram now shows the water having been collected from the river, treated in the drinking water treatment plant, and then distributed to homes.

The water now needs to get to the various appliances and spaces in the house that provide water. Use a blue marker to represent the inside pipes that bring the water up into the house.