The meaning of water Water, a single word.

It represents more than we can imagine, it's tied to everything me, you, your friends and your dearest. When you stop and think about it, water has so many things tied to it, like importance, bounds, relationship to life itself. Even metaphors, corelations, flow of thoughts can be described by it. Water represents many things that we can imagine and it has many forms. Yes, we all know it has three states, but each state represents something in our life. Liquid state to me represents calmness and peacefullness that you find in a lake, it can flow in the form of our well known rivers and it itself represents the flow of time. We can see waterfalls representing our failures or our hopes and dreams. When we watch rapids we can see our lifestyle, hastly paced and full of conflicts just like the foam. It can represent adaptability. Just like the water takes shape of a cup, we too can shape our destiny and our lives. Solid state can represent grudge or hate, deep within us slowly freezing our soul until we change or just let go. It can represent deep feelings about someone, still frozen and awaiting the day when a warm feeling or thought will melt it and set it free. Gas or steam state can represent our blindness to obvious things and feelings meant for us, it can represent even an argument blown out of proportion, it's in the meaning of letting some steam out of our system. The conflicts themselves can be quite useful sometimes and you just might notice how your dear friend thinks or feels about the subject you're fighting over, but the sun always comes after the rain. It can represent a neverending cycle like the cycle of life. Some rivers are sacred and are considered to be the path to the other side, the crossover between life and afterlife. Some feelings or thoughts can be connected to the water, as easygoing as the leaf on a river or even

deep like the feeling of love, it can make some moments of our lives full of joy and some hurtful to remember or even sad. Water is a word and it truly represents a substance, but a substance with so many connections to our everyday life that it is even proved as the cradle of life itself, but remember where there is water, there will always be change and life.
Denis urovi, fourth grade (electrotechnical school)

Water for life This story is not really new but it doesn't matter. It's been more than fifteen years of my acquaintance with water. It was the most important factor in the forming of life, which means that life was created and is maintained in water. We met at my first swimming sometime in October. As a little girl, not realizing the issue and essence of water, the most important thing for me was to waste it. To fill the jars with water and pour it over my little sister, to play chef and cook soup in five large pots, then become a waitress serving water coffe at home, and then throw it all into a nearby canal, sometimes really made me happy. Back then, water and I were best friends on that level. Slowly I grew up, and the water was still water. We spent a lot of time during high-temperatures and then I went to school. In some way, all of us became victims of advertising and we adopted an American trend to always, either in a hand or a small purse, carry with us a bottle of water as a fashion accessory. However, we didn't make a mistake, we eventually realized that we should drink at least one and a hallf litres of water a day. I have also read in various articles that cold water helps us lose weight. Of course, one should try everything. My longtime friend water spent hours and hours in the fridge because of my experiment, but again, of course, it did not show any results. It was very interesting. Nevertheless, it showed me many of its states. I was most impressed in winter. We spent some time outside at very low temperatures. My water was exposed to many varieties of music, different words and phrases. To nice and positive ones it reacted with beautiful crystals and vice versa. All the time we influence our surroundings and we can easily brighten or spoil someone's day. But we now realize how it all goes. I learned more about water day by day. They taught us that it is just a combination of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Strange, isn't it? It covers eighty percent of the earth's surface and its size doesn't bother it like mine bothers me. The latest information that we learned is that only one percent of drinking water on is proper and harmless. We learned the fact that we cannot find completely clean water in nature. So both the water and I are scared with the information that we read in morning newspapers every day when we have quiet breakfast. Millions of people around the world are still facing water shortages. Also, millions of children die every day from diseases spread by water. Every year, severe droughts affect some of the poorest countries in the world. In fact, water does not want it. Right now, just like every single day, it is

beside me. It wants to say that it's got a need to hang out with people for many more years, clear and pure. And I, I'm going to repeat my first water meeting, in hope that millions of people in a million of years will be able to perform it as easily as I do.

Tanja Cvetko, fourth grade (commercial school)

The thing we take for granted Water is the most important resource on our planet, not only on Earth but also in our lives. Can we imagine life without water? Can we even find a worthy substitute for this natures biggest gift? The answer to this question is quite difficult to find and in the present its even impossible. We dont have other resources like water on Earth and thinking about the future without it, gives us creepy feeling that we would like to avoid. Its not really comfortable to think about those awful days which are coming so quickly, so most of the people ignore the problem and act like its not their business. But, that problem concerns us all, unfortunately. Some of us less, some more. Fortunately, my country is spared of lack of water in the near future. Croatia is the fifth country in Europe by the accessibility and the wealth of water. Over one billion people use less than six litres of water per day, but people in this area don't have to be so economical. We have water and what is going to be in the future is the problem of our descendants. Every time we want to drink a glass of water, we just turn on our pipe and pour some fresh water in a glass. We can take a shower, or even a long, hot bath whenever we want, and don't need to think if there is going to be enough water for all of us. Whatever we want to do that includes water, we are able to do. Go to the swimming pools, wash our filthy cars and thousand other small things, we don't even think about. But what to do when water is gone? From time to time, waterworks are closed and citizens stay without a drop of fresh water in their homes. Those are the days, when we are getting the picture how the world will look like when all water resources are used up. Not being able to drink a glass of water, to brush teeth, hands or even go to the toilet makes us angry, miserable and leads us back to those old, primitive times, making the whole technology development so unimportant. Those are the days when we realise how important

water is to our lives and how grateful we should be for having such a gift which is unreachable for so many people. Lots of human beings are not conscious enough about water problems. It's because water is something that is always here and we can use it whenever we want. It is in human nature to take for granted something that has become a safe and huge part of our lives, something that is almost impossible to disappear. But water problems will not go away by themselves. Human race is responsible for all that is now happening to our planet and we all have to react and start to think about the future. We cannot think that there is no solution to this problem and that an individual can't make any difference. Changes start from a single person and maybe I can't help to save water, but all of us together with one little thing, with just turning off a pipe while brushing teeth, or taking a quick shower instead of long, warm bath, can surely make a difference.

Lucija Batini, third grade (secondary school of economics)