For Students

Water for the Valley

Your Term 4 project, from 12 October to 20 November.

Your layer on the map

On the map, a solid line means we have a fact for it. A dotted line means it’s a guess.

The question you’ll be answering

If our valley held more of the rain that falls on it, what work would that make, who would pay for it, and what must be true before we could start?

A big bond called the Cape Water Performance-Based Bond pays for clearing invasive trees so that more water reaches Cape Town from Theewaterskloof Dam. We sit below the dam, so the water in our rivers never reaches Cape Town. Nobody knows yet whether work in our valley could count towards that bond. If you find it can’t, say so and explain what stands in the way.

What we make together

1. The Valley Map. One big poster of our valley, made together in class. Each of you adds your own layer.
2. The Valley Water Plan. A short plan for the work and money that could come from holding more water. Each of you writes one part of it on a plan card.

At the end of the project we show the poster and tell the plan to your families and the school. Each of you tells your own part.

We won’t be writing letters or holding a panel. You don’t need to contact any organisation. Everything you need is on your page, in your Field Book, and at home.

How we work: Do, Tell, Think

1. Do. You use your hands first. You pour, build, measure, paint and plant.
2. Tell. You tell what you did to a grown-up, in your own words.
3. Think. Then you sort what you found, give it a thread, and make up your mind.

Your Field Book

Every week you add one large drawing or painting of what you did, and three facts beside it, each tied with a thread.

• Blue thread. Checked twice. Two separate sources agree, or an official record says so. [IC]
• Yellow thread. Their own word. It comes from the person or organisation the fact is about. [MS]
• Red thread. Not yet checked. It seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it. [TBV]

Ask yourself about every fact: what would move it up one level?

Your leaky dam

In Week 3 every one of you finds a gully or a flood-damaged section of the river where you would build a leaky dam. A leaky dam is a low wall of stones, logs or packed branches across a gully. It slows rushing rainwater so it soaks into the soil, while some still leaks through to the stream below. Gully stuffing means packing branches into a gully to catch soil and water.

You find your site on the class map in Google Earth: https://earth.google.com/earth/d/1PejJJkRHA_WrwYwdKrSeea92u3q3vp9y?usp=sharing

Then you plan what you would build around your leaky dam, and what activities you would offer there. Your own page has the steps. Look on Google Earth only. Don’t build anything there just yet.

Other ways the valley could earn. Each of you also picks one of these. Each is an idea nobody has tested here, so give it a red thread.

• Growing vegetables for restaurants and guesthouses in Greyton
• A nursery selling young local plants for gardens and restoration work
• Selling firewood, poles and wood chips from cleared pines and wattles
• Making compost from cleared brush and garden waste
• Honey from bees kept near the fynbos
• Guided walks and hikes along restored streams
• Teaching days for schools and visitors
• A school-run farm stall or Saturday market for valley produce
• Collecting seed from local plants for restoration projects
• Furniture and crafts made from cleared wood
• Paid work measuring rain and streams

Your plan card

Every one of you fills in the same card for your part of the plan. Start from your leaky dam. Put a drawing at the top.

1. What we would do. One sentence.
2. Where. Point to it on the map.
3. Who could do it. An organisation can only be a “could”, with a red thread. Nobody has agreed to anything.
4. What it gives the valley. Water, work, money, learning or care for the land.
5. What must be true first. Your open questions, each with a red thread.

The parts of the plan:

1. Our valley’s water (Annabella)
2. Holding more water (Mikiya)
3. What the valley did before (Zara)
4. Who does the work (Gracey)
5. Where the money comes from (Evan)
6. How we would know (Ayden)
7. Who promises what (Sam)
8. Before we start (everyone, led by Sam)

The weeks ahead

Each week has two hours with Michael, and two hours on your own afterwards. Your own page has your tasks for each week.

This week, before Friday 30 October. Make sure you’ve made notes in your Field Book. This week, sketch your map layer on a sheet of paper. Your page tells you how.

Rivers and mountains

In your Europe lessons you are meeting rivers as roads for trade and mountains as walls. A river carries things downstream. Money travels too, and it often goes the other way. Each page still has a Think of Europe question. Bring your answer from main lesson.

Rules

1. Every fact gets a thread.
2. You can only promise what you control. A need becomes a promise only when somebody says yes.
3. No organisation has agreed to anything. Write “could”, never “will”.
4. Keep it in the family. The Forum hasn’t discussed this idea yet. Keep what you find with your class and family.
5. Leave land ownership alone. The map shows places and water. If you find something about who owns land, tell your teacher first.

You may use an AI helper. Copy and paste this link into the chat: https://df.valleyofgrace.co.za/cultural/education/project/llms.txt. It can check a fact or explain a hard word. The painting, the plan card and the telling are yours.

When your project is finished

• The Valley Map has your layer and your leaky dam on it.
• Your plan card is finished and agreed by the class.
• Part 8 lists what must be true before the plan could start.
• You have told or shown your part at the showing.
• Your Field Book has a page for every week.