Sheila here.
Teaching environmental science is an interesting experience in Jordan, since it's a topic that is often overshadowed by other social, political, and economic issues. But It doesn't take much to realize that in Jordan, water is the focus, the issue at hand. Here are some statistics that I used in class today:
- Jordan is one of the top five poorest country in the world.
- As of 2014, Jordan lost 76 billion liters of water/year through leakage in pipes and theft (source: Mercy Corps). That's enough to support 2.6 million people/year (the UN calculated that a person needs 80 liters of water/day).
- When it comes to fresh water, Jordan has access to the Yarmouk River, the Jordan River, and the Disi Aquifer--and these sources are shared with other countries such as Syria, Israel, West Bank, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia.
- And the population of Jordan keeps increasing due to natural fertility rates and the influx of refugees.
It's pretty scary.
Living in Amman forces you to keep track of your water--we currently drink from huge 8L plastic water bottles from the groceries, and ran out of tap water twice (the guard forgot to turn on our pipes--water doesn't flow continuously in Jordan). So when I walked into class this morning, I brought along one of the empty 8L plastic water bottle and asked, "How much water do you think you need a day?"
Guesses ranged from (converting to liters) 40 to 300 liters. Reminder--a person needs 80 liters of water a day to meet their drinking, sanitary, and cooking needs. And that's not taking into account virtual water--water that goes into producing goods. Needless to say the kids were pretty shocked when they found out exactly how much water they consumed at the end of the day.
Things got pretty interesting when we started the mock conference between Jordan, Palestine and Israel on how to share the Jordan River--I was a little worried about how contentious this activity could be (and at times the discussion became heated at times), but the kids immediately got into character and tried to reach a solution that the three parties could agree on.
Some memorable quotes:
A delegate of Jordan while researching: "Jordan has shale oil! We could offer Israel shale oil, and they could help us with our infrastructure!"
A delegate representing Israel after a rather heated discussion: "The reason we didn't offer any water is because the other countries didn't offer us anything in return."
A delegate representing Israel: " We could help you fix your pipes, and that way you can have 50% more water as you already have."
A delegate of Palestine: "If you help us with infrastructure and give us water, we will give in return a stable a peaceful neighbor."
Not all the groups reached a solution, but at the end of the day, I hope they learned a bit more about the perspectives of the different groups of people who share the same water source... And about how to use water better.