NI Water’s Travelling Classroom Rolls into St Mary’s Primary School, Draperstown

Everyone’s favourite travelling classroom, the infamous Waterbus, recently paid a visit to St Mary’s Primary School, Draperstown.

During the visit, the children were introduced to H20, a water drop figure and mascot for the programme to help them learn about water and to understand the importance of water conservation. The children also learnt what can and can’t be put down the toilet through a ‘bag it and bin it’ activity, what NI Water does to clean the water and how sewage is treated.

NI Water’s Outreach and Learning Officer, Anna Killen, said: “We simply cannot exist without water, something that is easy to forget when we have constant access to running taps and flushing toilets. To provide a sense of scale, NI Water provides 605 million litres of fresh drinking water and takes away 373 million litres of wastewater every day. We manage over 40,000 kilometres of water mains and sewers - one and half times longer than Northern Ireland’s entire road network.

‘‘It is therefore important we educate young people in the vital role water plays in our lives; the Waterbus is a fun and interactive way to do this. 

“The Waterbus is very popular with schools and has an extensive waiting list for visits! We are delighted with the reputation it has come to enjoy as this goes to prove that the work we do on the bus is delivering what matters to today’s pupils and our future generation of water users.”

The programme is aimed at Key Stage 2 and designed to complement a key element of the Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum - the ‘World Around Us’. 

A teachers’ learning pack, with further classroom activities is available to download from NI Water.