Activity 1.3 - Which water tastes better – bottled or tap water?

Learning Aims:
  • The first objective is to express the opinion on the scientific level of the text searched in the Internet, to formulate the requirements on the subject – field (scientific) text, or to find another text in the literature or in the Internet, which would meet the requirements on the scientific level.
  • The second objective is to formulate in own words an assumption, which water is preferred by the students and give reasons. At the end of this activity, students compare types of waters, which they either praise or criticise in terms of taste.
Materials:
  • Worksheet, samples of bottled and tap water, cups
Suggestions for use:

First, the students find in the Internet the text * comparing the quality of bottled and tap water. Then there will be a discussion over the requirements on a scientific text in comparison with a popularizing text. We will ask the students what type of water they prefer and why. We can also ask them what type of water is preferred by their parents. On the basis of discussion and retrieved text, students will establish a hypothesis, that would, in their opinion, capture the attitudes of consumer public (this can be restricted to the respective class) to bottled water and tap water. They will justify their assumption.

Then we will ask them how to verify the hypothesis and at the same time to find out whether some people really do not like tap water due to its low quality or whether it is just an imposed feeling under the influence of e.g. advertising. Students should also propose a questionnaire investigation and then exploration of taste quality of the respective samples of water (bottled and tap), whose origin would not be known to the students testing them. After the investigation, when the students made notes as for the respective samples or they evaluated them using a scale, they should learn what the type of water it was. They should compare these results with the hypothesis and draw a conclusion. The results of the individuals can be presented in the table or graph in respect of the whole class.

Note: They can work in pairs, when one of the students will be “taster“and the other “researcher“, who will know the respective samples. Or this investigation can be carried out outside the lesson on another sample than that of the student’s classmates.

*This text can be found for example on the website: http://www.rozhlas.cz/zpravy/spolecnost/_zprava/637057, http://www.allaboutwater.org/
Possible questions:
  • Students formulate their own questions. A large amount fo questions arise through this activity.