USO DEL SUELO
6. ÁREA DE CRECIMIENTO CON CALIDAD 1. Introducción
As mentioned, connecting the distant with the local and the future with the present may work to engender a sense of water citizenship and responsibility amongst young people.
Agency
Some of the providers appear to have an agenda to increase young people’s perceptions of their own responsibility and ability to change situations, perhaps due to previous research finding a lack of both amongst the young (e.g. Hicks, 2007b). However, the water education materials all differ in the power that they assume of young people to take action. The Oxfam Education Water For All resource portrays a limited level of agency, with the materials aiming to increase visibility and appreciation of water, and encourage students to celebrate it (Oxfam Education, n.d.). Other resources see a role for children to fundraise for a water cause or perhaps write to their local MP.
Many materials present ‘water saving tips’ or ask students to come up with their own, and these are generally targeted at what the individual young person would be capable of doing. These raise the visibility of water in its often hidden roles in household activities. However, The Water Family website appears to assume that the child will influence family behaviour, or has a high level of agency in their home (for instance, making decisions about laundry practices) (Crystal Presentations, 2009). The STW Water Saving Guide also assumes a high degree of agency of the reader, listing suggestions like collecting rainwater in water butts, and planting drought-resistant turf. However, this resource is aimed at a mixed-age audience from teenager to adults
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(Severn Trent Water, 2010b). On the other hand, the Water Saving Tips flier suggests children ask an adult to order a Save-a-flush bag for the toilet cistern, and encourage their parents to only run the dishwasher on a full load (Severn Trent Water, 2010c).
Responsibility
A conversation about young people’s ability to act leads on to the level of responsibility they are seen to have. The STW Water Saving Guide includes two sections entitled “Doing Your Bit” and “Doing Our Bit”. This expression of a shared problem that is not being placed entirely on the water user may help to increase buy-in from consumers (Figure 4.14).
Figure 4.14 STW Water Saving Guide: “Doing our bit” and “Doing your bit” (Severn Trent Water, 2010b: 10, 13)
In research into a British and an Australian environmental scheme, Hobson (2013) found that some participants appreciated the option to ‘do their bit’ and make small, manageable lifestyle shifts. For other
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participants, Hobson suggests that “engaging fully with such programmes felt like an implicit endorsement of the status quo and the identity subsumed therein, the obedient citizen ‘doing their bit’ and interested for the most part in ‘feathering their own nest’” (Hobson, 2013: 62). Other academics have also criticised this message, for instance because it encourages simply changing the style of consumption rather than reducing it (Maiteny, 2002), or because it erroneously suggests small simple steps will have a big impact on the environment (Crompton and Thøgersen, 2009).
One of the main focuses of most of the charity education materials analysed appears to be raising awareness of the charity’s work, in order to encourage campaigning and fundraising. Oxfam Education’s Water Week resource consists of four slideshows: Introduction, Learn, Think and Act, with the latter providing ideas for campaigns and activities, including statements such as “£10 will pay for tools for one farmer to clear and maintain their swamp farm” (Oxfam Education, 2012). CAFOD’s documents also aim to motivate the learner to take action, with one of the suggested Key Stage 3 follow-up activities being “Planning action”. Students are encouraged to write to their local MP and the Secretary of State for International Development, as well as organising fundraising activities (CAFOD, 2012a) and making a personalised sign to send to David Cameron encouraging him to take the lead on water at the 2012 G8 summit (CAFOD, 2012b). Arguably, these activities take responsibility for action away from children and place it more onto government. On the other hand, this is an act of citizenship in itself, relating to political action as opposed to direct action.
The STW materials tend to be focused on personal action around communicating the need for more efficient use of water and how this can be achieved. In the STW Water Street game classroom activity, the class is divided into groups, and each group is designated a family on Water Street. The aim of the game is to determine whether your family
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is a water saver or a water waster.10While it could present a ‘black and white’ picture of water use as either efficient or wasteful, the game shows variations along the scale between wasting and saving, and also within households. Again, the activity raises visibility of the water being used by different members of a family around the home.
In terms of emphasising responsibility of youngsters, the CAT activity How much water does it take to make a burger? highlights that many food items come from abroad and may just be processed in the UK, which “…means that we are consuming ‘other people’s water’ in the things we buy” (Centre for Alternative Technology, 2011). The use of language here emphasises responsibility of the individual extending beyond their direct water consumption, and echoes the argument made by Hoekstra (2006) that we bear some responsibility for water availability in places where our water footprints stretch. In a similar vein, the GA Water Works toolkit discusses use of water in a ski resort in water scarce Dubai (Watts, 2009).
However, arguments such as this could be seen as troubling: how much responsibility for sustaining water resources do we want to put on the shoulders of young people? As Jessica Pykett (2011: 236) asks in relation to citizenship education and teaching fair trade, “…how can we teach a topic like fair trade without falling back on idealizations of the individual ethical consumer-citizen? How do we avoid reinforcing the view that the school student is entirely responsible for global inequality…?”.
As mentioned in the last section, the GA Water Works toolkit also considers levels of responsibility and action in the final lesson of the pack, where the futures perspective is referenced. The book states that this helps teachers and students to “…engage in responsible citizenship in the local, national and global community, on behalf of
10 Researcher’s observation of Severn Trent Water ‘Water Street’ activity with Y7 pupils,
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both present and future generations” (Watts, 2009: 33). Here we can see nested scales of responsibility and citizenship over space and time considered, in a similar vein to Dobson’s (2007) arguments about the international and intergenerational responsibilities of environmental citizens. In terms of pedagogy, the GA toolkit encourages students to articulate reasoning on responsibility, asking them “How far do you agree” with statements about water rights, responsibilities and management (Watts, 2009). However, as Barnett and Land (2007: 1066) discuss, it can be difficult to maintain care (such as that we may feel towards friends and neighbours) over long distances. Therefore, can we expect young people to feel a sense of responsibility for people in faraway locations, which they may know little about beyond a case study?
One way of tackling this may be through building empathy, and this is certainly what many of the charity providers work towards through their educational resources. The role play game is a feature which appears in many of the charity resources, as it encourages the development of empathy through putting oneself ‘in someone else’s shoes’. CAFOD’s Life Without Taps and Greenpeace’s game within the Water Warrior Toolkit are similar in that students work in teams to extract ‘water’ from an imaginary source. In CAFOD’s game, real (but empty) buckets are carried by pupils via a ‘river’ to a ‘storekeeper’ who hands over resources in return (CAFOD, 2012a; Greenpeace, n.d.). The Greenpeace game is about conflict between different stakeholders using the river, each with their own priorities. Taking a different tack, the Oxfam resource Water for All promotes a responsibility to young people to simply spread the word about water being wonderful! (Oxfam Education, n.d.).
Responsibility is a central theme in the Tourism Concern education materials, encouraging students to recognise the impact of tourists (and themselves as tourists) on water scarce regions. Rights and ethics are touched upon where tourist and local water consumption is contrasted:
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“The estimated daily domestic water consumption of local people on the island of Zanzibar is just 30 litres per day. In contrast, luxury resorts in Zanzibar use up to 2000 litres of water per tourist per day. Some hotels even have guards patrolling their water pipelines to prevent thirsty locals from trying to tap into them” (Tourism Concern, n.d.: 4)
The pedagogical technique of using a ranking exercise suggests pupils rate different suggestions on the topic “Saving water: how can individuals make a difference?”. By weighing up options, students may become aware of changes they can make to their own lives to have a positive impact on the lives of others (Figure 4.15).
Figure 4.15 Tourism Concern: “Saving water- how can individuals make a difference?” (Tourism Concern, n.d.: 7)
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To sum up, while in some of the materials, children’s connection to water availability in other countries is not made clear, with empathy and campaigns appearing to be key goals instead, others strive to form deeper connections, for example through the impacts of tourism or increasing the understanding and visibility of water footprints. Where children’s potential impact on the water resources of people in ‘other countries’ is explained, international responsibilities and citizenship are insinuated.