Students Can Save Water and the World by Ashli

Students Can Save Water and the World by Ashli - March 2017 Scholarship Essay

Our world is worried about running out of fossil fuels- a nonrenewable resource- but innovations allow wind, the sun, and water to provide alternative sources of energy. However, while this may be true, we are not focused on the fact that we are running out of a very important resource that doesn’t have a substitute and has been called, “renewable”- water. While there may be great amounts of water seen in our oceans, rivers, and lakes, only a small fraction of it is usable, and the amount of people on earth is still growing. We must save our supply of water and it starts with the youth of our country, so I would want to discuss the topic of water with a school-wide audience.
Water is an imperative aspect of our survival, and people need to understand this. Water is needed to sustain organisms in every facet of life. Both humans, animals, and plants use water to hydrate and perform necessary functions. Water keeps our trees and plants alive, providing oxygen- a necessary component in keeping almost all living things alive- and is also a habitat for an unspeakable amount of aquatic life. Overall, water is required for household, industrial, agricultural, and environmental needs. Life could not exist without water, but we are running low on our supply.
Our population has taken water and its many vital uses for granted and now we are left with .03% of usable water, as the rest is in oceans, icebergs, and the atmosphere, and this percentage is dropping. Our ecological footprint on our home we call Earth has been devastating for the atmosphere, environment, and the life around us. People around the world generate billions of tons of waste which is dumped into rivers and other waterways creating a great amount of water pollution. Furthermore, millions of tons of fertilizers and pesticides are used and runoff into freshwater systems creating more water pollution. We are deteriorating our natural resource supply without much thought to our actions and have only been thinking in the short-term rather than what our future could look like. The future is these students and they can learn the damage of pollution and help influence others to care for their planet and not pollute.
It’s important to keep students informed on what is going on across the globe so they understand the danger that our usable water is in. Our global population is growing at a rate of 1.11%, so we must focus on sustaining our supply of clean water and lowering the percentage of people who find clean water to be inaccessible to them. Over 1.2 billion people across the globe don’t have access to usable water, and the rest of the population overuses water leaving little for the future resulting in water shortages. Change is possible as people here in America have experienced drought and made it through, with California as a prime example. Citizens in California cut back their water consumption in order to not deteriorate their current supply and allow those in the future to have accessible water. Everybody has left the sink on, tossed out their drinking water, taken long excessive showers, or washed small loads of laundry. Students can help once they understand that they can stop our abuse of our clean water supply and increase the globe’s amount of usable water which provides for countries without clean water.
We must take care of our planet and its resources for not only our sake, but for those that will come after us. The kids and teens of today can help save our populations from drought by taking steps to lessen pollution and stop lavishly using their water supply. Students can help change our world for the better and can help save our water supply. These kids can understand we only have one earth, and, as poet Gary Snyder put it, “Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.”