Topic: Food, Water, and Agriculture

Issue: Water shortage

Aim: To inform students about how bad water shortage is now, along with spreading tips and
ways on how we, teenagers, can help to save water and to prove that saving water is
easy.

Description of Project Outcome:

Our main outcome is the presentation to all Secondary 1-3 students, along with other
activities, like an educational social media account, a poster competition, a shower
experiment, multiple surveys, and our group members’ own attempts at saving water at home.
Cross-cultural Collaboration

Our group contacted two Singaporeans, two Australians, a Japanese and a Malaysian, to
predominantly ask about their knowledge of water shortage and other questions. We came to
the realization that most of our respondents weren’t aware of the water shortage situation now.
Hence, this motivated us to brainstorm an effective outcome and successfully achieve our
aims. Since most of their responses suggested that we should make a social media account,
we created one too.

Reflection

 Evaluation of Project and Process

Before beginning our process, I conducted my research. World Vision (n.d.) mentioned that
785 million people in the world lack access to clean water. Besides that, I found out water
shortage had brought a lot of negative effects like poverty (Solar Impulse, 2018) and World
Wildlife (2021) predicted that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population may face water
shortage. I got to learn more details about this issue, but next time I could’ve done more
research.

Firstly, we did our successful cross-collaboration and saved water. Unfortunately, saving
water didn’t work, since only Anselline could obtain the water bill. Thus, next time we
could’ve thought of possible scenarios first, to prevent failures like this. Responses in the
cross-collaboration survey also got mixed up, but everything was under control. While
Valerie and Anselline dominated the social media content, Gaby and I worked on the slides.
Valerie and Anselline also scheduled the presentation and ensured that we had everything
ready for it. One strength we had was that we gave each other updates, so we all knew
what’s happening.

We then worked together for other activities, while simultaneously making surveys an
having meetings. We could’ve had more verbal meetings to prevent minor
misunderstandings we had, like how one was confused regarding posting our participants’
posters. But overall, I believe that this project process went well, as there weren’t any
issues we couldn’t handle and we had fixed planning. However, we were indecisive. We
couldn’t pick our project topic, so in the end, we decided to ask our classmates. Also despite
how we were forgetful about the shower experiment, we hosted an immediate meeting for
this and everything went well.
 Evaluation of Project Outcome

Research showed that there is lack of awareness of this issue (Guli, 2012). Hence, after
brainstorming, we chose to create a presentation, alongside other activities. I certify that
our main outcome was successful. We got a decent amount of responses through our
peardeck presentation and a lot of people gave positive compliments. Besides that, we
achieved the aim of raising awareness, as all respondents of our survey said that they
learned something. Nonetheless, the time-management of presenting needed more work,
because we didn’t get to finish our quiz time after the presentation. Also, we could’ve been
more attentive because we accidentally sent the wrong survey. Other things like the poster
competition and shower experiment were also successful, observing from our surveys. For
the competition, we could’ve done better by having more participants. To achieve this, we
could perhaps give prizes instead of mere certificates, to attract more people. Additionally,
though we received good comments regarding our social media, our account needed
improvements. Not all of our 100+ followers were active, so it was quite a challenge to have
40-50 likes in all of our posts. We could’ve frequently asked for more detailed feedback, to
understand what’s wrong.

 Our teamwork and my own performance

Since Anselline, Gaby, Valerie and I are good friends, we communicated well. Anselline
assisted participants, while Valerie had creative ideas. On the other hand, Gaby was a
supportive friend and according to everyone, I took a leadership role. Ostensibly, we each
had our tasks and nobody slacked. We could work together enthusiastically, like when we
handled the competition and the preparation of the presentation. The challenge was that
we might get sidetracked during meetings. So, next time, we could’ve acted more seriously.
Anselline and Valerie sometimes rushed things, like how they completed their social media
content quickly. It didn’t affect anything badly, but they could’ve taken more time to ensure
good-quality posts. For Gaby, I wished that she contributed a little more to the presentation.
Because of this, it took a longer time to finish it up. Regardless, I am honored to have
cooperative teammates like them. For my contribution to the team, I made the presentation.
I also made surveys and kept reminding the members if we needed to post on instagram
and more. That action helped to make sure that we were on track. Being proactive, I
controlled the instagram account and made a google drive for the experiment when nobody
asked. I also ensured that I did my tasks well. Nevertheless, I was too impatient and a little
pushy. For example, when I once asked for approval about our soon-to-be instagram post,
they forgot to reply. I panicked and got a little pissed because we were supposed to post
on that day. Politely apologizing afterwards, I told myself that next time, I would take things
more easily.

What I learned from this project

I learned how water shortage is a big problem, hence I am glad to learn and raise
awareness about this. It opens my eyes on how lots of issues are not so exposed in the
media. Now, I am more aware, and I am using tips that I discovered to save water.
Additionally, I learned that small acts can make changes. Saving water and raising
awareness sounds small, but according to the WorldWaterDay Organization (2021), it helps
a lot. I also learned to not take things too seriously. Another valuable thing I learned is that
I should really appreciate how my friends were lovely members and through the ups and
downs, we should always look at the positive side of things.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Guli, M. (2012). Raising awareness of the global water crisis. [online] World Economic
Forum. Available at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2012/03/raising-awareness-of-the-
global-water-crisis/[Accessed 16 Feb. 2021].

Solar Impulse (2018). Solutions to water scarcity: how to prevent water shortages? [online]
Solarimpulse.com. Available at: https://solarimpulse.com/water-scarcity-solutions
[Accessed 5 Feb. 2021].

World Wildlife Fund (2021). Water Scarcity | Threats | WWF. [online] World Wildlife Fund.
Available at: https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/water-scarcity [Accessed 3 Feb. 2021].
www.worldvision.com.au. (n.d.). Global Water Crisis - Water Scarcity Facts & How To Help
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World Vision Australia. [online] Available at:
https://www.worldvision.com.au/global-water-crisis-facts#helpglobalwatercrisis [Accesse6
Feb. 2021].

World Water Day 2021. (2021). Act. [online] Available at:

https://www.worldwaterday.org/act?page= [Accessed 19 Mar. 2021].