The class investigated how much water they waste when brushing their teeth after learning about World Water Day. Five students measured the amount of water they used, which ranged from 625 ml to 6 l. On average, each student used 2.5 l per brushing. With twice daily brushing, the class wastes 155 l per day or 1085 l per week brushing their teeth by leaving the tap running. This amounts to over half a million liters wasted per year, almost as much water as the local swimming pool holds. The next step is to measure how much water could be saved by turning off the tap while brushing teeth.

1. Room 3 Investigates:
Do we waste water?

2. Our Earth Kids reported back from a recent
meeting, that it was World Water Day.
We discussed the issue and wondered how
much water we use when we clean our teeth.
We knew we shouldn’t leave the tap running
when cleaning our teeth, but most of us did.

3. • Five of the class measured how much water
they used when they cleaned their teeth.
• The results were:
1. 625 ml
2. 3l
3. 1.5l
4. 2l
5. 6l

4. • We then worked out that if we brushed our
teeth twice a day using the average amount
2.5 l per person, our class wasted 155 litres
per day!

5. Wait… there’s more!
In a week we wasted 1085 litres!

6. That is 565 750 litres a year!
Sean and Shannon rang the Splash Centre and
found out that the big pool holds 600 000 litres
of water. We waste almost that amount
brushing our teeth!

7. Our next step is to find out how
much water we could save by not
leaving the tap running!