12: dehydration
suggested answers
1) You get dehydrated before you feel thirsty.
2) The more people doing things where the water has come from, the more likely
it is that you can’t safely drink it.
3) Boiling water for 10 minutes is an easy way to kill most bugs.
4) You can catch all kinds of things if you share drink bottles & tea towels.
additional activities
1) Discuss the symptoms & treatment of diseases that are listed. (Many
students will have direct or indirect experience of glandular fever aka “the
kissing disease”.)
2) Discuss the issue of being a carrier of a disease without realizing it.
3) Ask students to list other things the sharing of which could lead to salival
contact (e.g. forks, spoons, mugs, plates, half-eaten food, straws, even kissing!)
4) Discuss the hygiene of sharing other objects (e.g. earplugs, hats).
5) Try out the practical exercises in Footprints worksheet # 83 “Outback
survival.”
6) Ask students to privately monitor the color of their pee a) during camp;
&/or b) at other times. They should be able to self-assess their level of
hydration/dehydration. (Bear in mind that people tend to wake up in the morning
dehydrated.)
7) Investigate & trial various ways of purifying water.
8) Investigate the giardia & cryptosporidium outbreak in Sydney’s
water supply in 1998. (Google: cryptosporidium + Sydney + 1998, or view: http://www.healthywater.com.au/water_facts/waterfacts10.cfm?cat=commercial).
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