The students will investigate five common diseases that can be transmitted by water by becoming the experts on a particular disease. Each learning centre will have information to read and questions to answer. After learning about the disease, each group of students will present their information so that the whole class can learn about the disease.
The city of New Orleans, Louisiana was one of the areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. The bustling city was flooded as the levees protecting the city failed. The flood waters filled the streets with almost every imaginable type of contamination. Fuel, chemical, and biological products combined to make what some people referred to as a “toxic soup”.
In May 2000, a waterborne disease outbreak occurred in Walkerton, Ontario. Over 2,300 people became ill and seven people died as a result of E. coli 0157:H7 and Campylobacter jejuni contamination in their drinking water. An inquiry was called to determine how the water had become contaminated and if charges should be laid against those directly involved with the treatment of water.
