Equipped To Survive™ Presents  Stay Alive An Independent ThinkQuest Student Project

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Finding Water

Water is essential to life and thus can usually be found just about everywhere, provided you know where to look. The following are good places to look for water:

• Glacier run-off
• Rock crevices
• Trees (indicate source of water)
• Dunes (dig at lowest point between dunes)
• Dry river bed (dig in the outside bend of the river)
• Follow converging animal tracks
• Bees and flies (Bees are never more than 3 miles away from water; watch where they fly after leaving their nest. Flies are even closer to water; about 110 yards or so)

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Collecting Water

Rain: Stretch a waterproof sheet tightly over a wide area. Peg down its corners with sticks and tilt it so that rainwater flows into a container.

Solar Still: Dig a reasonably large hole in the ground. Place vegetation in the hole, and then a container in the middle of the hole (at its base). Place a sheet of plastic over the hole, and secure the edges (with sticks as pegs or stones) then place a stone in the middle of the sheet, above the container. The sun will cause water in the plants to evaporate; the evaporation will be caught by the plastic, and run down the sheet to its center - the lowest part - and drip into the container.

The Solar Still

Vines: Cut a vine at its highest end (as high as you can reach.) Have a container ready, then cut the vine at a lower end. Water will flow out the bottom.

Melting Snow: Make sure that you melt snow on a rock or in a cloth, but not in a pan, as the pan will burn (as the snow melts, the snow that's still snow absorbs the water, causing the pan to burn.) Also, make sure the snow is clean and comes from far below the surface.

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