Lesson 9 of 10 · Engineering and Design
Experiment⭐ 30 XP🛠️ Engineer ShopWhere Drinking Water Comes From
Engineering and Design.
🎯 Your mission
Set it up. Test it. Be amazed.
⚡ The twist
Constraints make you more creative, not less.
Mind = Blown
🛠️ The first computer bug was a literal moth stuck inside a machine in 1947.
Make a hypothesis first
Before you test: how many tries until it works?
What You'll Learn
Water is collected from rivers, reservoirs or underground, then screened, settled, filtered and disinfected before it reaches a tap. Each stage removes something different, and skipping any one of them makes the water unsafe.
Key Words
Tap a word to see its definition.
Materials Needed
- plastic bottle
- gravel
- sand
- cotton wool
- muddy water
- beakers
Safety First
- Never drink water you have filtered, however clear it looks.
- Wash hands thoroughly after handling soil or muddy water.
Steps
Read the explanation above and note the two key terms before you start.
Build a four-stage filter from a bottle with gravel, sand and cotton wool and pass muddy water through it. Record clarity at each stage and explain which stage the real process still adds that yours cannot.
Record what actually happened, including anything that did not match what you expected.
Write a conclusion that answers the question this lesson opened with, and state your uncertainty.
Check Your Understanding
Question 1
1 of 2Which stage does a home-made sand filter NOT provide?
Where you see this in real life
Every bridge, building, and gadget you've ever used started with this.
Stretch Challenge
Try this in real life this week.
Find something that's broken at home and try to figure out *why* it broke.
For the dinner table
“What's something around the house you'd redesign — and how?”
Next Smart Experiment
We'll pick an experiment that matches exactly how you're thinking right now.
Share this experiment
Send it to a parent who's looking for a 10-minute kitchen science win.
Ready?
Where Drinking Water Comes From
Set it up. Test it. Be amazed.
Full screen — no distractions
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