Making Their Mark in Water Conservation and Education

How can plastic bottles filled with two litres of water each result in savings of up to 8,000 litres of water every month?

That is just what Bendemeer Primary School has done. By placing a filled bottle inside its flushing cisterns, the school has been able to reduce the amount of water used for each flush. The bottle displaces water in the tank, causing the cistern to use less water each time it refills.

Needing no sophisticated gadgetry or expensive retrofitting, this simple solution for saving water won the school the ‘Best Suggestion of the Year’ award for the South cluster from MOE in 2010. This year, Bendemeer Primary went on to bag the Watermark Award from the Public Utilities Board (PUB) for its outstanding efforts and commitment to water conservation and education. Introduced in 2007, the Watermark Award honours individuals and organisations that take ownership of Singapore’s water resources and contribute to sustainable water usage.

Everyone plays a part

According to Principal Mrs See Lai Kwan, Bendemeer Primary takes a “whole school approach” to saving water. “The school leaders, together with the Environment Education Team, are the driving force behind the water conservation practices in the school, with support from the operations manager who is in charge of monitoring the school’s water consumption and its daily usage,” she elaborated.

Small but practical steps that add up include having the operations manager check the water meter twice daily to detect any unexpected surge in water usage that might be a tell-tale sign of leaking pipes and installing dual-flow water saving devices on all taps to reduce the flow rate by half. The pupils are also taught how to reduce and reuse water in school and at home, such as collecting water from the school’s eco-pond to water plants in the herb and science gardens.

Even cleaning contractors and canteen vendors get a crash course in water conservation through briefings on the importance of saving water and reminders to look out for leakages and wastage of water around the school premises. Publicity posters on water conservation around the school compound also provide friendly nudges to visitors, staff and pupils to support the effort.

Developing a sense of environmental responsibility

To give the pupils a broader perspective of their water conservation efforts, the school adopted the nearby Kallang River in 2008 as part of PUB’s Our Waters Programme. Working with partners from the Kolam Ayer Citizens’ Consultative Committee (CCC), the pupils perform regular clean-ups of the waterway for a five-year period. Mrs See explained that such hands-on projects show the pupils the impact of littering and other careless acts on the river and encourage them to become “concerned citizens and active contributors to the community.”

“We hope that through the partnership with the PUB and Kolam Ayer CCC, our pupils will internalise a sense of social responsibility towards our environment,” she added.

To make the clean-up activities more meaningful, teachers lead discussions with pupils about how water pollution affects the environment and ways they could help keep Singapore’s rivers clean. The pupils also get to put on their thinking hats and design posters and pamphlets to promote environmental awareness.

Nurturing a generation that cares

Meanwhile, the school’s Environmental Club plays a major role in fostering environmental consciousness among the pupils. For example, the Club organised games and other activities during Earth Week this April to show why water is a scarce resource and should be used wisely and sustainably.

“We learnt about water conservation practices and ways to keep our water resources clean,” said Primary 5 pupil Ler Wei Qiang of the event. “Together with my classmates, we wrote jingles on water conservation and presented them during assembly.”

Wei Qiang’s classmate Anjali Gupta clearly recalls what she learnt during Earth Week. “Only one percent of the water in the world is fresh and safe for us to drink,” she quipped. “Therefore, it is important that we conserve water so that we will still have enough to drink.”

And in a sign that the values of Watermark have sank home and are becoming a way of life, Pri 5 pupil Angie Ng shared, “In school, I will turn off the taps tightly after each use. At home, I use a mug when brushing my teeth. My family and I will also collect water for rinsing fruits, vegetables or rice and then reuse it to water houseplants.”