“Water Crisis Awareness Day” will be marked in Israel’s schools on Tuesday, Feb. 24. The main ceremony will take place in a western Galilee elementary school, in the presence of Education Minister Yuli Tamir, Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, and Water Authority Director Prof. Uri Shani.
Water Crisis Awareness Day will feature activities and discussions on various aspects of the water crisis in schools across the country. These will include ways of preserving Israel’s water supply, saving water at home, and technological solutions.
The stated goal of the day is to “enlist the students to save water up to the last drop.” The schools have received special “water crisis” teaching and activity kits for use in teaching the issue, including selections from the Babylonian Talmud, Israeli writer Ephraim Kishon, and more.
The main ceremony will feature a display of students’ projects on topics such as saving and storing drinking water, gathering rainwater from roofs for irrigation, use of a nearby brook, and more.
Children Make the Difference
The teachers, aided by Water Authority experts, will teach about the global context of the crisis, and will give them practical ideas for preventing water wastage at home. Previous experience and research has shown that children have a significant effect on their families in environmental matters.
In an open letter to the schools, Tamir, Shani and Ben-Eliezer write, “To our sorrow, the recent years of drought have brought about over-use of our natural water reservoirs: the Kinneret, brooks, and aquifers, to the extent that endangers the availability of water for its different uses. We are therefore forced to enact extreme steps in order to preserve our water sources… With the help of the students, we will reach every house in Israel and we will change the situation, as we have done in the past.”
Kinneret Makes Up 1% in Two Days
The heavy rains of the past few days have raised the Kinneret six centimeters, to a level of 214.17 meters below sea level – 26 centimeters higher than its lowest level this year. It still has 5.37 meters (17 feet, 9 inches) to go before it reaches its maximum level of 208.8 meters below sea level; even another meter of height before the rainy season ends several weeks from now will be warmly welcomed.
Israel's natural water supply has dropped 13% over the past 16 years, from an average of 1.35 billion cubic meters to 1.175. Other problems include increased water usage and decreasing water quality.
The Education Ministry is sponsoring a contest for elementary and high school classes to produce short films on water-saving. The winner will be treated to a day of fun, worth up to 10,000 shekels, and will take part in a PR campaign run by the Water Authority.