The following is an event plan for the activity based on one hour. 

Event Plan:

•             1 500 mL plastic bottle, cut to hold filter material

Volunteer Roles

Set up the area to facilitate the activity.

Assemble country packages. Each group receives a handout that includes a country profile, instructions on how to make the water filter and an amount of monopoly money based on the table below:

Put the filter materials in an easily accessible area at the front of the class ("the store").

Assign a lead volunteer to introduce the activity. This person’s (can be shared) role is to convey the following messages:

• Engineering is about problem solving at its core.
• Engineers are focused on helping make the world a better place by keeping people and the environment safe.
• Engineering is very broad (many different careers, industries); this can be achieved by telling stories about where and how engineers work (hospitals, arctic, offices, in the field, with robots, with plants and water, etc.)

One implicit message we would like you to convey is that engineers are both men and women. This can be done by saying “she” during the stories of engineers, it does not need to be an explicit statement.  

Introduce yourself during the intro, include what you studied, an interesting part of your work, why you enjoy engineering and why you would encourage students to consider it.

A slideshow is provided for this activity. Have a volunteer lead the slideshow presentation, share slides as preferred.

Divide the students into working groups (4-5 students per group). Distribute a country package to each group. Explain to the students that they are to make a water filter as outlined on their instruction sheet. They may purchase the materials they need from "the store" using the monopoly money they are provided.

Once the filters have been constructed and are filtering the water (this can take some time). Use the following guide to have a conversation about the activity. 

Now we’re going to talk about how the activity relates to the real world. (There is a slide in the presentation that links to this)

Show each text box one by one by clicking “Enter”. Before showing the “Real World” column for each row, ask the class what they think the elements of the activity relate to.

1. Each country group was given a different amount of money. What do you think this relates to in the real world? What indicator on the country profile does this relate to? [Answer: Economy, GDP]

The GDP is the total amount of money a country generates in a year, through goods produced, services provided and investments. This amount is divided by the total number of people in a country to give income per capita (or per person).

2. Some countries’ instruction sheets were difficult to read. Raise your hand if your country group’s instructions were illegible. [Pick someone with their hand raised to explain what he/she thinks this represents in the real world.] What indicator on the country profile does this relate to? [Answer: Literacy]

The illegible instructions also relates to unequal access to information. For example, while there is a lot of free information on the Internet, the dominant language of the Internet is English. Therefore, if someone is literate in a language other than English, he or she wouldn’t have access to the same information as you or I.

3. The poorer countries were really creative and resourceful. [Use actual examples of this that you observed during the activity.] This is true in real life too. People in developing communities may not have lots of education or lots of financial resources, but they still come up with innovative ways to get by.

4. I noticed some collaboration between countries. [Use actual examples of this that you observed during the activity. For example, sharing of resources.] This happens in real life too. Richer countries have formed organizations such as the G7 and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

Poorer countries from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean have formed the G24. At the last World Trade talks in Cancun last September, the G24 used their collective voice to try to urge the richer countries to lower agricultural subsidies.

5. Any signs of patronizing attitudes? A parallel to the real world is that richer countries sometimes “dump” leftover food such as wheat and milk to developing countries. Sometimes, the receiving countries are not used to eating the foreign food, so it all goes to waste. In other cases, the surplus of food caused by dumping lowers the value of the locally produced food, and farmers in developing communities become even poorer.

6. The United States and Canada groups gave some financial aid to the poorer countries. In the Real World however, the US gives only 0.11% of their GDP to developing countries. This is equivalent to only $1 in the activity. Canada gives slightly more – 0.28% of our GDP, equivalent to about $2 in the activity.

Have the students present their water filters and the results. This could just be comparing the clarity of the output streams.

Q&A time will need one volunteer to invite questions from the students. This is a good place to share the “How do you recognize and engineer?” story about the Iron Ring being on the pinky finger of the hand we write with to create the constant reminder that people will be impacted by our actions. Answer questions during the Q&A.

Hand out gifts and brochures as a thank you to the students for participating.