WATER TRIVIA - ANSWERS

 

 

1. How many people in the world don’t have clean drinking water?

  1. one out of every hundred people
  2. one out of every twelve people
  3. one out of every six people

That's thirty times the population of Canada!

 

2. How fast does water move after it has soaked into the ground?

  1. ten centimetres per day
  2. ten metres per day
  3. one kilometre per day

So that means you might be drinking rain that fell forty years ago!

 

3. How much of your body is made of water?

  1. nearly all of my body is water
  2. two thirds of my body is water
  3. there is no water in my body

We are mostly made of rain, so we are part of the environment - it's not something outside the walls of our houses.

 

4. Where people have to drink dirty water, what makes them sick?

  1. bacteria
  2. viruses
  3. parasites

That's right, all three. Bacteria are tiny slimy things that live everywhere but sometimes can make you sick. Viruses are things like colds and flu. Parasites are nasty little creatures that feed on you. We are lucky not to have any of these in our water.

 

5. How much land collects the water that ends up in Rustico Bay?

  1. 500 acres
  2. 6,000 acres
  3. 22,000 acres

All the fields and roads, even the school playing fields, collect rain for the river. So that means that we have to be careful what we put on the ground - like chemicals, road salt and manure.

 

6. Where does water come from?

  1. water is made in the clouds
  2. we have the same water that we did a billion years ago
  3. water is made underground

In fact, it is thought that all the water we have now was here four billion years ago, that's 4,000,000,000 years! No more is being made, so we have to look after it well.

 

7. In Canada, we each use more water than people in some African countries. How much more?

  1. we use three times more water than people in some African countries
  2. we use forty times more water than people in some African countries
  3. we use a hundred times more water than people in some African countries

We use 350 litres a day, each. We use a lot of that water to make energy - electricity and gas.

 

8. The tide flushes out Rustico harbour. What causes the tide?

  1. the wind
  2. the moon
  3. the spinning of the earth

The moon's gravity pulls the sea, making the tides. The sun's gravity does too, so when the sun and the moon are on the same side of the earth, we get a big tide - called a Spring tide.

 

9. We have 1200mm of rain each year. How much more rain is that than the driest part of Africa?

  1. we have 50 times more rain than parts of Africa
  2. we have 400 times more rain than parts of Africa
  3. we have 1200 times more rain than parts of Africa

In some parts of Africa, they only have 3 mm of rain! There's only 300 mm of rain in parts of Alberta, and Global Warming is drying things up even more. All the more reason for us to try and use less water.

 

10. Why do our rivers turn red during a rain-storm?

  1. soil washes off farm fields and roads into the rivers
  2. the mud on the river bottom is stirred up by the rain
  3. the sea washes sand into the rivers

We used to build ships in New Glasgow, now the river is full of mud. It looks pretty, but it gets too hot for the fish and they have nowhere to breed because the gravel bottom is covered in mud. Your Watershed Group is cleaning up the mud from the bottom of our streams and our farmers are trying to stop their soil from washing into the rivers.

 

 

11. How much of the world’s fresh water supply does Canada have?

  1. 40 percent
  2. 20 percent
  3. 6  percent

We have 20% of the world's fresh water, but only 6% of the world's drinkable water. So we have a precious thing that we must work hard to preserve and protect.

Thanks for trying the quiz - and if you are not a member of our Watershed Group yet, please do join, it is only $10 and your money helps us to preserve and restore our beautiful landscape.

 

 

 

 
Last modified June 30, 2009