As an English Teacher I find this subject fascinating. I like to bring this theme into my classes often to inspire my students to drink more water and of course to learn more vocabulary! I start off by explaining how water keeps the organs of our bodies operating efficiently. I show them the statistics in the following illustration:
As always with learning something new, students need to learn the why before acting on the advice. I find a visual explanation always helps. It captures their imagination and encourages questions and debate in the classroom. Once satisfied with the reasons why water is essential for our bodies, we move on to the next part of the class. The WHEN. We see that it is not a simple question of sipping a glass of water whenever we feel like it. To help our organs function properly we need to do it at certain times of the day as highlighted below.
My students are surprised at having to take a glass of water into the bathroom when taking a shower. They never think of how the heat of the water can affect their blood pressure. Another gem of information they can take with them after the class. We then move on to discussing the seventeen benefits of drinking water where the students get an opportunity to comment on each one.
Again, there is much surprise at how water can reduce fatigue and prevent headaches and backaches. As we live in a pharmaceutically driven world, we are used to taking tablets to remedy these ailments. We never think that a simple glass of water is the solution!
Warming to the theme, the students start to open up about themselves. One student talks about fatigue he feels mid-afternoon and tries to wake himself up with a cup of coffee. I suggest he replaces the coffee with a glass of water to rehydrate his brain. He looks at me pensively. Another student talks about her father who is diabetic and needs to drink between 3 and 4 litres a day. He is currently under medical supervision.
As we come to the end of the class we talk about the misconceptions of water. One of them being, drinking water during our meals. The advice is to drink water a half an hour before our meals to help convert our food into energy and aid digestion. The biggest challenge is drinking a glass of water first thing in the morning and last thing at night. They never feel in the mood!
I question them about their preferences for still or sparkling water. I place one glass of each on my desk and ask one of the students to time me drinking each one. The still water always wins out! It demonstrates that you can drink still water faster than sparkling! They see that they can reach their target of 1.5-2 litres a day quicker!
We then finish the lesson with a caption Eight glasses of water a day and a cartoon illustration:
They leave the classroom more convinced that water indeed is the engine of life!