Clean H2O Creations

Before the meeting: 

1. Cut the plastic bottles in half.  
2. Set up an area with sand, gravel, cotton balls, and coffee filters.  
3. Make a water filter following the directions below to use a model. 
4. Make a batch of dirty water for every two Cub Scouts. 

During the meeting: 

1. Gather Cub Scouts and share with them that no matter where the source of water comes from before it gets to your house it is filtered.  There are several different ways to filter water and in most areas several methods are used.  Most filtering systems start with removing solid items from the water, things like dirt, sand, and rocks.  Today we are going to make our own filter to demonstrate how filters can remove solid items from water.  
2. Have Cub Scouts buddy up. 
3. Pass out the bottles and paper cups to each pair of Cub Scouts. Pour about a cup of dirty water into the paper cup. 
4. Have Cub Scouts flip the bottle’s top half over and put it in the bottom, so the top looks like a funnel. Tell them they’ll build their filter in the top part. 
5. Have Cub Scouts build their filter by using coffee filters, sand, gravel, and cotton balls.  
6. After Cub Scouts have built their filters, have them slowly pour their dirty water over the filter. 
7. Ask Cub Scouts what their water looks like after it has gone through the filter compared to how it looked before. What do they think happened? 
8. Tell the Cub Scouts that before this water can be clean enough to drink it still would need to be treated to remove the things, we can’t see in the water like bacteria that can make us sick.