On Thursday the 27th September we went to Affinity water centre, but when we went it was called Veolia water centre (they changed their name). We got there by coach I sat with Aanya. There were big metal gates that moved for the coach as we went in. There was very little grass and trees, it was mostly man made buildings. We learnt how water is purified and how it is useful for us in our everyday life. As we went around the water treatment works we filled in a missing word work sheet.
When we walked into the water treatment works the lady with us asked what we could smell, we smelt chlorine.
First they had to get the water out of the ground using big pumps and long pipes. Then the water goes through pipes called ozonaters which put ozone and electricity in the water, which kill the bacteria and break down the chemicals. But it isn’t clean yet, there’s more. Then they have big tanks almost like swimming pools that have G.A.C. in. G.A.C is crushed coconut which is very good for filtering the water, it collects up the dead bacteria and broken down chemicals. Then they put in 1% of chlorine so its protected as it goes through the pipes.
When we got back to the classroom we did three experiments in different groups. My favourite experiment was the one where there was a jug of really dirty water that we had to make clean by putting it through different types of filters, which were gravel to get the big bits of dirt out and then we put it through sand to get most of the dirt left out but it was still a bit dirty. Our last filter was the special G.A.C which made really clean. Then we went back to school.
Grace Allen – 5JP