Global Drinking Water Concerns

CONSTRUCTED RESPONSE TASK:

Global Drinking Water Concerns

Target:

1: Key Details: Use explicit details and implicit information from the text to support answers or basic inferences about information presented.

Passage:

Global Drinking Water Concerns:
How this item/task contributes to the sufficient evidence for this claim: To complete this task, students must support a specifically stated inference provided in the prompt by identifying and explaining how the implicit information in the text relates to the inference.

Stimulus:

Global Drinking Water Concerns:
Humans need a minimum amount of water to live each day. Without water people will die. Most communities were formed near a water source like a river or a lake. Over time many of these water sources have changed. The water may not be as clean as it once was, or it may have evaporated partially or completely. It is very possible that humans have caused these changes. It is important for humans to find solutions to help fix these changes.
High quality water is important for human health. In many areas people drink the same water that they use for human waste. Farmers may also use animal waste as fertilizer. This fertilizer may run off into rivers. These waste products can cause people to get sick and possibly die. The waste contains microbes that may be bad for humans. Drinking water needs to be treated so that it is safe to drink. Even though water may look clean and safe, it often is not. Many diseases are connected to these microbes such as cholera, typhoid, and dysentery. Countries and communities are working to help keep water safe to drink. To do this, people need to have good sewage systems that send their waste for treatment before it goes back into the water supply.
Rivers are often borders between countries. These countries sometimes fight over the use of the water in the river. These fights have led to wars because countries know how important it is to have access to water. The United Nations has started a convention to help countries work together. This is difficult because of how important the water is to both countries.
The country of Tanzania has been dry for almost two years because of water evaporation. The people of Tanzania need to find new sources of water. This is not easy. Now people in some villages must walk more than ten miles to get drinking water. Some people believe that this dryness is because of climate change. Temperatures in many parts of the world have risen causing more evaporation of water supplies. This theory is called �climate change." Right now this theory cannot be verified, but if the water does not stop evaporating, many more people will be looking for drinking water.
People are starting to understand how important water is as a resource. People need to take care of the water supply through the use of sewage systems, not wasting water, and thinking about how what we do can affect water. Many scientists are saying that water will be the new oil and that people will go to war over water. What do you think?

Prompt:

Clean fresh water is not always going to be available. Desalination is a process that removes salt from ocean waters. How does it work? Explain the importance of safe drinking water and why it is a global concern.